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China’s Spring Festival sees record spending, but frugality continues amid economic uncertainty
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Over the holiday period, sales of key retail and catering enterprises in China grew by 4.1 per cent compared to 2024.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
BEIJING – China’s Spring Festival holiday in 2025 gave the economy reason to cheer, as it broke several records for domestic consumption. But even as Chinese citizens travelled and shopped, their per-person spending lagged behind pre-pandemic levels, pointing to frugality amid an uncertain economic outlook.
Across the eight-day Spring Festival holiday from Jan 28 to Feb 4, overall spending on domestic travel reached an all-time high of 677 billion yuan (S$125.6 billion), an increase of 7 per cent compared with 2024, according to official data released on Feb 5.
