China has proposed a 5 percent average annual growth rate for the total retail sales of consumer goods during its 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25), said the Ministry of Commerce.

As the total retail sales of consumer goods have shown a steady and slow development trend in recent years, service-based consumption will continue to grow, and its proportion will become larger in the country's household consumption in the next stage, said Zhu Xiaoliang, director-general of the department of market operation and consumption promotion at the Ministry of Commerce.

"With people's living standards continuing to improve, we found that the nation's consumption trend has upgraded from purchasing goods to service consumption, and the share of service consumption is getting higher," he said.

Service consumption accounted for 52.5 percent of China's household consumption in the first half of this year, data from the ministry showed.

By Zhong Nan