BEIJING — China's consumption is on recovery path and further measures are underway to boost consumption upgrading and optimize supplies, an official with the country's top economic planner said on May 24.

Earlier data showed China's retail sales of consumer goods went down 7.5 percent year-on-year in April, recovering from a drop of 15.8 percent in the previous month.

"The data showed the trend of expanding consumption scale and optimizing structure had not changed, and I believe the retail sales data will be better in May," Ning Jizhe, deputy head of the National Development and Reform Commission, said at a press conference.

As part of efforts to spur consumption recovery, China will further push upgrading of auto consumption and encourage circulation of used cars, with tax support policies for purchases of new energy vehicles, according to Ning.

More efforts will be made to boost service consumption in areas including tourism and elderly care.

China will also quicken the pace to foster new types of consumption such as digital and information consumption and step up new infrastructure construction on 5G networks and data centers to support consumption growth in related areas, Ning said.

China will work to improve the consumption willingness and capabilities of domestic residents and support the recovery and development of consumer service sectors, according to a government work report submitted to the national legislature for deliberation on May 22.