Zhang Li, 22, is cruising Beijing's department stores, determined to part with the 300 yuan (US$36) her grandparents have given her as a traditional Lunar New Year gift, wrapped in a red envelope.
"Normally, I'm very cautious when buying clothes and make sure to go after bargains," she says, huddled in a thick coat against the city's Siberian winds. "But during the Spring Festival I allow myself to buy exactly what I fancy."
PHOTO: AFP
Zhang, her shopping bag already bulging, is behaving precisely the way the government wants her to, splashing out on consumption rather than leave her money to languish in a low-interest bank account.
She is one of hundreds of millions of Chinese who are braving freezing temperatures to take advantage of the week-long Lunar New Year holiday and go shopping and traveling, boosting the world's fastest growing major economy.
"Shopping centers and entertainment venues are crowded," said Chen Xingdong, chief economist with BNP Paribas Peregrine in Beijing. "People are spending money which has been accumulating [as savings] over the past years."
Since 1999, China's 400 million city dwellers have been given three seven-day vacations every year, with the implicit order to have a good time and go spend some money.
This is a crucial element in China's development strategy, as consumer spending accounts for an estimated 30 percent of the country's economic growth, which came in at 9.1 percent last year.
For Wang Chun, who sells apparel at Landao Department Store in eastern Beijing, the policies translated into a 40 percent rise in revenue last week.
"Especially in the days just before the Spring Festival, many people came here to buy clothes so they could look good during the festival," he said.
The scattered data that have been reported so far suggest this Lunar New Year will be little different from previous holidays in terms of lifting economic activity.
As the holiday set off a yearning among Chinese people to reach out to their loved ones, telecom business rose dramatically, with 100 million text messages sent off in Beijing alone.
At the capital's state-of-the-art Oriental Cinema, ticket sales have been up 50 percent compared with normal weekdays, but the real boom is still to come, according to Kang Xuejun, a manager.
"People have been making short trips out of town in the first days of the holiday," he said. "Now they are back, and we expect a big increase in ticket sales in the coming days."
Beijing families leaving the city on day-trips may cause movie theaters to be less crowded than they could have been, but they are keeping the economy humming in other ways.
They contribute to tourism and travel, a major pillar of the holiday economy that appears to have boomed again, as most have discounted the SARS scare that erupted earlier this month with the discovery of three new cases.
A government forecast has the number of trips by train, bus or plane total a staggering 1.89 billion during the festival transport season, which actually began just days after the western New Year.
Despite the impressive figures, the boost to the economy from the festival should not be overestimated, analysts warned.
One unexpected factor is the cold spell that has gripped large parts of China, sending the mercury to unusual depths and causing many to stay at home.
The cold weather is the main reason why one of the country's largest traditional temple fairs, at Beijing's Temple of Earth, has seen just 80,000 daily visitors so far, down from last year.
But organizers are still hopeful that people will come out in large numbers and set cash registers ringing at the fair's snack and souvenir booths.
"The temperature seems to be rising, so we expect at least 100,000 today," temple official Cao Ci said yesterday.
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