China's catering section retail sales reached 888.68 billion yuan (109.71 billion U.S. dollars) in 2005, a year-on-year increase of 17.7 percent, or a net growth of 133.6 billion yuan (16.5 billion dollars).

Figures published on Friday by the Ministry of Commerce showed that the industry has maintained double-digit growth for 15 consecutive years.

The increase of China's catering retail sales in 2005 over the previous year is 4.8 percentage points higher than the growth in China's retail sales of consumer goods, said the ministry.

Statistics also show that retail sales from catering accounted for 13.2 percent of the country's total retail sales of consumer goods last year.

Sources with the ministry said China's catering section achieved 48.878 billion yuan (6 billion dollars) in taxes in 2005, a year-on-year increase of 17.8 percent.

In 2005, the number of newly approved foreign-funded catering projects dropped 1.23 percent year-on-year to 894, with the contractual use of foreign funds totaling 1.041 billion dollars, up 6.71 percent.

The actual use of foreign funds fell 34.51 percent to 282 million dollars, said the ministry.

Source: Xinhua