Aug. 13 – China’s retail sales increased by 23.3 percent to RMB862.9 billion in July, the fastest climb in nine years.

Retail sales were buoyed by families buying television sets for the Beijing Olympics thus boosting household electronics sales by 18.8 percent.

The largest maker of consumer electronics, TCL Corp., reported that sales of liquid-crystal display televisions rose by more than 400 percent in July to 420,659 from last year’s 78,447.

In the first half of the year, urban disposable incomes increased 14.4 percent or 6.3 percent after inflation. The government hopes increased domestic consumption will lessen the country’s dependence on investment and overseas sales.

“Income growth is robust and there’s no sign that inflation has eroded consumers’ purchasing power,” Paul Cavey, an economist at Macquarie Securities Ltd. told Bloomberg.

China’s government has implemented regulations to help its economy cope with the global slowdown which includes easing bank lending quotas, increasing tax rebates on exports of garments and textiles and blocking the gains by the yuan against the dollar to aid exporters and small businesses.