China's retail sales of consumer goods went up 2.5 percent year on year in August this year, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed Wednesday.

The country's retail sales of consumer goods totaled around 3.44 trillion yuan (about 533 billion U.S. dollars) in August, data from the NBS showed.

Retail sales in last month were 3 percent higher from the level in August 2019. The two-year average growth was 1.5 percent.

In the January-August period, retail sales gained 18.1 percent year on year and was up 8 percent from the same period in 2019, according to the NBS.

In the first eight months, the catering industry saw a year-on-year increase of 34.4 percent in revenue, as the hardest-hit sector continued to recover from COVID-19 disruptions.

Online consumption remained a bright spot, with online retail sales rising 19.7 percent year on year to reach about 8.12 trillion yuan in the Jan.-Aug. period.