BEIJING — China’s rural areas continued to unleash consumption potential, while fixed-asset investment in the primary industry saw a bigger decline, said the country’s agricultural ministry.

In the first five months of 2019, the retail sales in rural areas nationwide totaled 2.34 trillion yuan (about $339.6 billion), according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.

The reading, up 8.9 percent year-on-year, was 0.9 percentage points higher than the growth rate of the retail sales in urban areas, according to the ministry.

Rural e-commerce sustained its growth momentum, with sales of food reporting a 24 percent growth year-on-year in May, according to the big data platform of Taobao, China’s e-commerce giant.

Meanwhile, the fixed-asset investment in the primary industry came in at 583.7 billion yuan, down 2.3 percent year-on-year.

The decline expanded by 2.2 percentage points than that of the January-April period, the ministry said.