South Korean retailers witnessed a whopping sales increase for the first two weeks of October as they joined the nationwide consumption-promoting campaign, data showed Sunday.

The 22 retailers that joined the Black Friday Korea campaign saw their sales increase by a total 719.4 billion won ($634.9 million), or 20.7 percent, on-year over the cited period, data compiled by the Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy showed.

The government and large retailers joined forces to organize the Korean version of the United States' Black Friday shopping season after consumer spending plunged due to the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome scare.

The number of foreign tourists also rose 8.5 percent on-year, marking the first rise since the outbreak of MERS in May.

The government estimates that Black Friday will increase the country's consumption and gross domestic product's on-year growth by 0.2 percentage point and 0.1 percentage point, respectively, for the fourth quarter. (Yonhap)