A new residential complex in Fuzhou, East China's Fujian Province Photo:cnsphoto

Sales revenue in the real estate industry in January and February saw positive growth of 2.3 percent year-on-year, showing a recovery in housing consumption, an official said on Thursday.

Housing sales revenue accelerated further in March to 17.9 percent growth year-on-year, Wang Jun, director of the State Taxation Administration, said on Thursday during a press conference.

Wang said that companies' sales revenue growth has been gradually picking up this year and consumer demand has also been gradually expanding.

In the first quarter, demand for services such as accommodation, catering, sports, entertainment and residential services picked up significantly and their potential was quickly released, with sales revenues surpassing the level in 2019 before the epidemic, official data showed.

Sales revenue for accommodation grew by 22.8 percent on a yearly basis in the first quarter, with catering seeing a rise of 13.7 percent.

"Commodity retail sales recovered steadily and quickly, with sales revenue in the first quarter growing by 11.6 percent year-on-year, 3.4 percentage points faster than for the whole of 2022," said Wang.

Taxes are known as the barometer of the economy. Big data on taxation showed that enterprises' confidence in their future production and operation is strengthening step by step, he noted.

In March, the amount of enterprise purchasing increased by 14.1 percent year-on-year, 12.8 percentage points higher than that in January and February, and further increased to 23.8 percent year-on-year from Saturday to Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the amount of machinery and equipment purchased by the manufacturing industry increased by 13.5 percent year-on-year, 7.1 percentage points faster than the whole of 2022, which reflects the growing willingness of enterprises to expand production and upgrade equipment.

Wang also revealed that in March, 79.7 percent of 473 industries in China registered positive growth, compared with about 56 percent in the January-February period. From Saturday to Wednesday, the share of the industries with positive growth rose to 86.9 percent. 

"The current proportion is close to the pre-pandemic level in 2019," Wang noted.

Global Times