China is Booming
China's per capita disposable income reached 32,189 yuan (about 4,961 U.S. dollars) in 2020, more than double the level in 2010, official data showed Tuesday.
The figure represents a 2.1-percent year-on-year increase in real terms after deducting price factors, said Fang Xiaodan, an official with the National Bureau of Statistics.
During the last 10 years, the cumulative growth of per capita disposable income in the country in real terms stood at 100.8 percent, according to Fang.
At the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2012, the country vowed to double the average per capita income of urban and rural residents by 2020 from the 2010 level as one of the key components of its goal to build a moderately prosperous society in all respects.
Foreign direct investment (FDI) into the Chinese mainland, in actual use, expanded 6.2 percent year on year to a record high of 999.98 billion yuan in 2020, the Ministry of Commerce said Wednesday.
In U.S. dollar terms, the inflow went up 4.5 percent year on year to 144.37 billion dollars.
China's online retail sales of goods rose 14.8 percent year on year to 9.8 trillion yuan (about 1.5 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2020, data from the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) showed Tuesday.
China has ranked the largest online retail market in the world for eight years in a row, the MOC said, noting that online retail sales accounted for 24.9 percent of the country's total retail sales volume last year.
Surging online sales boosted the courier sector, with a total of 83.36 billion parcels being delivered through the year.
In 2020, e-commerce sales via livestreaming also gained popularity, with more than 20 million livestreaming marketing activities taking place.
The MOC data also showed that the country's imports of consumer goods increased by 8.2 percent year on year to 1.57 trillion yuan.

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