China's catering trade reaped 619.7 billion yuan (about 76.5 billion US dollars) in retail sales revenue in the first three quarters of 2005, up 17.3 percent from a year earlier, the Ministry of Commerce reported Thursday.

The increase was 4.3 percentage points higher than the growth in China's retail sales of consumer goods, and prompted the retail sales to grow by 2.29 percentage points, noted the report.

The sales volume of the catering industry realized a record high of 77.95 billion yuan (some 9.87 billion dollars) in September, up 15.5 percent year-on-year.

According to the report, foreign investors set up 654 catering businesses in the first nine months in China, down 1.7 percent from a year earlier, and the actual investment by overseas business people in the catering sector dropped by 36.01 percent to 203.86 million US dollars.

Source: Xinhua