Beijing's retail sales in March dropped 9.9 percent from the same period last year, while Shanghai experienced an even steeper decline of 14.1 percent, according to local government data released on April 18 and April 25, respectively.

Despite these efforts, Beijing saw a 38.2 percent year-over-year decline in telecommunications equipment sales and a 20.2 percent drop in auto sales during the month.

Despite the poor performance in Beijing and Shanghai, the National Bureau of Statistics reported a 5.9 percent year-over-year growth in official nationwide retail sales for March. Many Chinese netizens questioned the accuracy of this figure, given the contraction in two of China's most developed cities. Some commenters mocked the official data, blaming the bureau for habitually inflating data to paint a falsely optimistic picture of the economy.