796m yuan retrieved for disgruntled consumers in China

BEIJING - Chinese authorities retrieved around 796 million yuan ($130.07 million) for disgruntled consumers in the first half of this year as the country places greater emphasis on protecting customer rights, official data showed Tuesday.

In the first six months, about 290,000 individual consumer complaints were processed by the China Consumers' Association (CCA), the organization said.

Complaints about services, including express delivery and Internet commercial services, grew the most, according to the CCA. According to the association, the service industry is harder to regulate than consumer goods, and consumers are paying more attention to services than they did in the past.

Household items and electrical appliances, clothing and shoes, communications equipment, home decor and food safety were among the most common subjects of complaints about goods.

Chinese authorities retrieved 920.02 million yuan for dissatisfied consumers in 2014, data from the CCA showed, as Chinese consumers are increasingly aware of their rights and the country strives to boost domestic consumption.