China's online retail sales increase

China's online retail sales went up 4 percent year-on-year to 13.79 trillion yuan ($2.04 trillion) in 2022, said the Ministry of Commerce.

Among them, the online retail sales of physical goods reached 11.96 trillion yuan last year, representing a year-on-year growth of 6.2 percent and accounting for 27.2 percent of China's total retail sales, the ministry said in an online statement on Monday.

In the meantime, online retail sales in China's northeast and central regions expanded 13.2 percent and 8.7 percent year-on-year, respectively, while the sales of this kind in eastern and western regions grew 3.8 percent and 3 percent on a yearly basis, respectively.

The country's e-commerce sales via livestreaming grew rapidly in 2022, with more than 120 million livestreaming marketing activities taking place, said the Ministry of Commerce.

China's foreign trade, generated by a cross-border e-commerce business format, surged 9.8 percent on a yearly basis to 2.11 trillion yuan in 2022, data from the General Administration of Customs showed.