Eastern Shanghai has replaced southern Guangzhou as China's No. 1 city in catering retail in 2005, according to the statistics issued by the Ministry of Commerce Thursday.

Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chengdu and Xi'an were listed as top five cities in catering retail volume last year, the ministry's statistics said.

Their catering retail volume was 35.03 billion yuan (US$4.4 billion), 30.17 billion yuan, 26.79 billion yuan, 20.54 billion yuan and 20.54 billion yuan respectively.

The catering retail volume in Shanghai, Changsha, Zhengzhou, Nanjing, Tianjin, Wuhan and Ningbo grew fastest among all Chinese cities last year, according to the ministry.

The retail sales of China's catering industry totaled 888.68 billion yuan (US$110 billion) in 2005, a rise of 17.7 percent year on year, or 133.6 billion yuan more than that in the previous year.

Sources with the ministry said China's catering industry grew steadily in 2005 and food consumption has played an important role in spurring domestic consumption.  

(Xinhua News Agency March 25, 2006)