Consumer market steadily recovers

▶ New COVID- 19 cases unlikely to impact consumption: analysts ▶

Under the impact of the COVID- 19 pandemic, the global economy has been severely impacted. However, with China’s successful control of the coronavirus, increased hotel bookings at popular tourist sights, and fast- growing online shopping numbers show that Chinese consumers’ confidence are gaining – a sign that China’s consumption sector is steadily recovering, experts said.

Citing a manager from a hotel near Shanghai’s famous Bund, where the annual New Year light show would be held, chinanews. com reported that the rooms that have best views for the show have been sold out for the New Year’s Eve, and other rooms are expected to be fully occupied for the same day.

This is in stark contrast to what happened in the beginning of the year when the coronavirus outbreak happened in China, causing people’s panic and fear to travel.

“China’s quick response to the epidemic in January and February guaranteed the normal business operations, which prevented further damage to consumers’ income expectation,” Cao Heping, an economist at Peking University, told the Global Times on Wednesday

Apart from the tourism sector, e- commerce in China has also witnessed fast growth since the epidemic. According to a study by research institute of China’s Ministry of Commerce, the number of users of online shopping increased by 100 million over the first six months this year. The online sales increased 16 percent in the first 10 months this year, according to the study.

“Secondly, the fast growth of China’s digital economy this year including online sales and food delivery services have accelerated the consumption sector’s recovery,” Cao noted.

According to China’s National Bureau of Statistics, in January and

February, when the coronavirus outbreak was at its peak, the total sales of consuming goods saw a 20.5 percent decrease year- on- year. After seven months, the figure first time turned from negative to positive, as August saw a 0.5 percent increase.

Since then, the figure has been increasing and the total sales of consumer goods in November reaching 3.95 trillion yuan ($ 605 billion), marking November the fourth month of consumption sector growth.