China's retail sales increased by 17.9 percent in January and February over the same period last year, and totaled 2,505.2 billion yuan, the National Bureau of Statistics announced on Tuesday.

The increase was up 2.7 percent year on year and 2.4 percentage points higher than that of 2009.

The combined data of January and February show that the retail sales in cities and towns totaled 2,074.8 billion yuan, up 18.4 percent year on year, and in rural areas totaled 430.4 billion yuan, up 15.5 percent.

Among the consumer retails sales, income from catering services is 280.6 billion yuan, increasing by 17.3 percent year on year and the rest 2,224.6 billion yuan is goods retail sales, which gains a 17.9 percent increase.