China's consumption growth will witness a slowdown, a newly issued economic blue book predicts.

The retail sales of consumer goods has maintained growth over recent years but showed signs of declining in the year 2005, says the blue book, which was released at the 7th Chinese Economists Forum held recently in Beijing.

The forum was jointly held by the Development Research Center of the State Council, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Ministry of Commerce.

The retail sales of consumer goods in the first eight months rose 13 percent year-on-year, but it indicated a drop of four percentage points from the same period of last year, the blue book says.

"The actual consumption growth will slow down in the future compared with 2004," the book says.

Li Shantong, a research fellow with the Development Research Center of the State Council, attributed the change to the consumption of the country's 900 million rural population.

He explained that the price of farm produces increased slowly and the net income of farmers saw a relatively slower growth than 2004, which will finally lead to the declining of rural demand and social consumption.

Source: Xinhua