Retail sales rose 13.3 percent in September from a year earlier, compared with 13.4-percent growth in August, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

In the first nine months of this year, retail sales increased 12.9 percent from a year earlier to 16.88 trillion yuan ($2.77 trillion), 0.2 percentage points higher than the first half of this year, the bureau said. In the same period, retail sales in rural areas rose 14.5 percent year-on-year to 2.30 trillion yuan while in urban areas it went up 12.7 percent to 14.58 trillion yuan.

In breakdown, sales from the catering industry went up 8.9 percent year-on-year in the January-September period amid the government's frugality push while automobile sales increased 9.3 percent, said the bureau.