Consumers attending the 30th Old Beijing Spring Festival Commodity Fair held in Chaoyang District, Beijing on February 8, 2026. Photo: Ma Jingjing/GT

With the Lunar New Year just around the corner, China’s New Year’s economy continues to heat up, with domestic demand such as shopping for New Year supplies, pre-holiday travel, and dining reservations driving the rise in consumption. Analysts said that in addition to implementing multiple policies and measures to promote consumption, this year’s Spring Festival is expected to further unleash spending potential and provide a good start for the consumer market throughout the year.

The 30th Old Beijing New Year Commodities Fair held in Beijing’s Chaoyang District on Sunday was crowded with consumers buying New Year decorations, fresh fruits, local specialties, intangible cultural heritage products and imported goods.

Liu, a Beijing resident, was carrying several shopping bags containing food, Chinese New Year couplets and lanterns. He told the Global Times that at the fair, you can not only buy all the Spring Festival products, but also relive the fun of going to street fairs as a child.

According to data from Chinese e-commerce platform JD.com, since the New Year Goods Festival began on January 25, the search volume related to New Year goods has increased more than four times compared to the previous year. Red costumes, horse-themed decorations, decorations with the word “sign” on them, and various gift boxes were very popular during the first week of the festival.

Citrus fruits are a type of fruit that is popular during Chinese New Year in some regions of China. This fruit is most widely distributed and has the largest production scale in Guilin, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in southern China. Orders in Guilin increased by 48.5% year-on-year from October to December, according to data sent to the Global Times on Sunday by Lalamove, the country’s leading intracity freight platform.

Hot pot chain Haidilao told the Global Times on Sunday that it has seen a surge in bookings for group reunion dinners during the Chinese New Year holiday from February 15 to 23. To better meet the demand for reunion dinners during the holidays, more than 1,000 restaurants in Haidian’ao will open normally on New Year’s Eve, and more than 1,200 restaurants will open on Lunar New Year.

Spring Festival, the most important traditional holiday in China, is generally a peak season for domestic consumption, with family gatherings, dining, entertainment, travel, and gift purchases. Ahead of the holiday, China launched several policies to further stimulate domestic demand.

China’s Ministry of Commerce (Ministry of Commerce) recently announced that it will launch a special shopping campaign from February 15 to 23 to promote consumption, enrich cultural life and stimulate market vitality.

According to the action plan jointly released by the Ministry of Finance and eight other government ministries, the measures include promoting celebratory meals and reunion banquets, offering discounts on home appliances and home renovations, increasing transportation capacity, holding national cultural and tourism consumption events, rolling out shopping promotions in major business districts and discounting movie tickets.

Local governments are also rushing to announce various policy measures to stimulate consumption during the Lunar New Year holiday. For example, Jining City in East China’s Shandong Province recently adopted a method of calculating car subsidies based on the percentage of the sales price of new cars, with the aim of more accurately meeting the car purchasing needs of various consumers and stimulating the vitality of the car consumption market.

“This year’s national Spring Festival consumption promotion activities are characterized by the distinct characteristics of government-led, multi-party cooperation and comprehensive coverage. Its core lies in the dual promotion mechanism of policy and activity, deeply integrating diverse business models to stimulate consumption potential, optimize consumption supply and create a strong festive atmosphere,” he told the Global Times on Sunday.

“Domestic demand remains an important driver of economic growth, and the measures launched by government agencies to promote personal consumption during the Spring Festival holiday will further unlock consumption potential and give the country’s consumer market a good start throughout 2026,” Zhang said.

China’s new consumption – consumption behaviors and patterns shaped by new technologies, new business formats and new models – has attracted widespread attention over the past year, providing new growth drivers for the consumer sector. Yang Delong, chief economist at Shenzhen-based First Seafront Fund, told the Sunday Global Times that new consumption, which represents a new consumption trend, is injecting new vitality into the sector.

“Towards 2026, with the improvement of China’s economic structure, ‘Made in China’ is continuously transitioning to ‘China Smart Manufacturing’ and ‘China Brand’. The increasingly mature situation of new consumption is taking shape, and a new picture of China’s high-quality economic development is being drawn,” Yang said.

(Web editor: Zhong Wenxing, Liang Jun)