China has entered its week-long shopping spree called “Golden Week,” and economists will be observing the willingness of shoppers to open their wallets after the country appears to have firm control over its virus outbreak.
Beijing has not recorded a locally transmitted symptomatic case since 15 August, and The New York Times reported there seem to be two trends emerging: China has bounced back to near normalcy while other countries, like Spain, continue to grapple with the virus, and it seems the “ripple effects” from the outbreak are lingering.
There have been hundreds of millions of people in the country attending various events and taking brief vacations during the national holiday. The BBC reported approximately 550 million people will travel within the country for various festivities. Qunar, a travel service, told Reuters that economy flights to some areas of the country have sold out.
Beijing still has restrictions on those entering the country, and most venues are operating at about 75 percent capacity. But the country has loosened some of its rules, including face masks at all times.
The Times pointed out that although the numbers appear high, there seems to be trepidation by some citizens to resume carefree travel. The number of travelers is about 30 percent lower than in 2019, before the outbreak in Wuhan.
Zhang Tianbing, the head of the Asia-Pacific consumer products team at the consulting firm Deloitte, told the NYT that China shows consumption can bounce back once countries get a firm hold on the virus and customers have confidence, with both job and health security.
Citing government data, the South China Morning Post reported that the catering business in the country recovered 93 percent in August and restaurants have experienced high demand with “only a small number of seats in limited time slots” available.
“People’s willingness to go out and travel is very strong, which will support further recovery in the catering industry,” Fu Yifu, a senior researcher at the Suning Institute of Finance, told the paper. “When people travel, they have all meals outside, so the restaurant revenue will increase significantly.”
TREND FORECAST: China, the world’s second largest economy, is forecast to have positive GDP growth this year, while the GDP of all other major economies sink into negative territory.
Despite business not fully bouncing back, with the 150 million Chinese who once traveled abroad now traveling domestically, it supports another element of Beijing’s duel circulation policy to rely less on exports and become more of a self-sustaining economy.
It should be noted that in 2000, the year before China was made a member of the World Trade Organization, only 10.5 million Chinese traveled overseas.
