China's retail sales of consumer goods totaled 43.97 trillion yuan ($6.51 trillion) in 2022, declining 0.2 percent from a year ago, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Tuesday.

The retail sales of consumer goods in urban and rural regions were respectively 38.04 trillion yuan and 5.93 trillion yuan, according to the NBS. While the figure for urban region fell 0.3 percent year-on-year, that for the rural area stayed flat from a year ago.

Merchandise retail sales increased 0.5 percent year-on-year to 39.58 trillion yuan, while that for the catering industry declined 6.3 percent to 4.39 trillion yuan.

Specifically, retails sales of edible oil and food and that of beverage from enterprises above designated sized jumped 8.7 percent and 5.3 percent, respectively, on a yearly basis.

Online retail sales rose 4 percent year-on-year to 13.79 trillion yuan. Among that, tangible merchandise retail sales reached 11.96 trillion yuan, up 6.2 percent from a year ago and accounted for 27.2 percent of total retail sales of consumer goods.

In December, total retail sales of consumer goods fell 1.8 percent year-on-year, 4.1 percentage points slower than that in November.