China's Dining And Lodging Retail Sales Up 24.8% In The First Nine Months

According to the statistics released by the Ministry of Commerce on October 27, 2008, in the first three quarters of 2008, the retail sales of China's dining and lodging industry increased by 24.8% to over CNY1.1 trillion.

There increased rate was 6.7 percentage points higher than the same period last year and the dining and lodging retail sales for the year 2008 are expected to reach over CNY1.5 trillion, a year-on-year increase of 24.3%.

In the first three quarters of 2008, there were 506 newly established foreign-invested hotels and restaurants in China, a year-on-year decrease of 25.9% and the foreign investment in actual use was USD720 million, a year-on-year decrease of 4.5%. Of which, the actual use of foreign capital in the dining industry was USD300 million, a year-on-year increase of 14.4%.

According to the MOC, the dining and lodging demand was greatly boosted by the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. During the third quarter of 2008, the retail sales for the dining and lodging industry reached CNY384.81 billion, a year-on-year increase of 26.3% and the growth rate was 7.5 percentage points higher than the same period last year.