BEIJING — China's retail sales of consumer goods climbed 3.3 percent year-on-year in September, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Oct 19.

The growth picked up after the major consumption gauge posted its first positive growth this year in August by rising 0.5 percent year-on-year.

Retail sales of consumer goods rose 0.9 percent year-on-year in the third quarter of the year, the first positive quarterly growth this year.

In the first three quarters, the indicator went down 7.2 percent year-on-year to 27.33 trillion yuan (about $4.08 trillion), with the decline narrowing by 4.2 percentage points from the first half of the year.