Frustrated by sharply rising gold prices during the Spring Festival shopping rush, many cautious Chinese gold buyers are opting to redesign their old jewelry instead of purchasing expensive finished gold products.
Some gold jewelers in Kunming City, southwest China's Yunnan Province have reported a notable decrease in customer traffic during the Spring Festival holiday, traditionally the peak season for gold jewelry sales.
The decline has come as a result of high prices of the precious metal, according to one of the jewelers.
"In the period around the Spring Festival holiday, the price of gold has increased by approximately 40 yuan (about 5.5 U.S. dollars) per gram. Customers' first reaction upon entering the store is that the gold prices are excessively high. So, the foot traffic has decreased by an estimated 40 to 50 percent," Gao Shunyan, a saleswoman, said.
Many staff members of gold retailers believe that consumers' wait-and-see attitude is fed by the uncertainty about where gold prices will go next.
Meanwhile, a trend of redesigning old gold jewelry and customizing new pieces has been emerging in China.
At a jewelry store located in Nanjing, east China's Jiangsu Province, five to six customers arrived with their old gold jewelry for redesign and customization as soon as the store opened in the morning. The three goldsmiths there were busy fulfilling their requests. Without changing the weight, the processing fee for remodeling jewelry is only 10 to 15 yuan (roughly 1.4 to 2 U.S. dollars) per gram. Mr. Qing brought an old gold bracelet and also bought a gold bar to create a new bracelet for his wife. The goldsmith spent over two hours completing the task.
According to Qing, cost-effectiveness and personalization are the reasons why many consumers have chosen to redesign their old jewelry.
"The jewelry brands' products sold at stores are quite expensive. It seems that they all are sold at over 800 yuan (around 110 U.S. dollars) per gram now. I bought a gold bar for processing, which is relatively more cost-effective," Qing said.
Remodeling gold jewelry gets popular in China amid surging gold prices
The Sanya branch of the Peking University (PKU) Hospital of Stomatology based in the tourist resort city of Sanya in south China's tropical Hainan Province -- the country's first national-level regional dental specialty center -- officially opened on Saturday, providing local residents and tourists with access to top-tier dental care without leaving Hainan.
As a key city in the Hainan Free Trade Port and a hub for both tourism and wellness, Sanya has seen rising demand for oral healthcare. Local resources, however, have long been strained.
The newly launched hospital aims to ease the situation. Both its management and medical teams come directly from the main campus of the PKU Hospita of Stomatology in Beijing, ensuring seamless integration and unified standards across diagnoses, treatment, and service quality. The facility comprises of nine specialized buildings, including an emergency outpatient complex and an international medical services building, covering all sub-specialties in dental medicine.
"Since the official start of Hainan Free Trade Port's island-wide special customs operations [on December 18, 2025], the very first zero-tariff items entering the region were advanced dental equipment for our hospital. This enables a wide range of patients in the Hainan region to access the world's latest dental treatment equipment and technology more quickly," said Deng Xuliang, president of the PKU Hospital of Stomatology.
Looking ahead, the main campus of the PKU Hospital of Stomatology will collaborate with medical universities in Hainan to jointly train more specialized professionals for grassroots-level healthcare institutions across the region. Through technical mentorship and integrated training programs, the initiative aims to leverage the policy advantages of the free trade port to build a high-level, comprehensive platform that integrates medical services, education, research, public health, and healthcare management, with particular attention on international patient services and comfort-focused treatment.
"The operation of medical care plus health and wellness programs and of medical care plus tourism projects has jointly contributed to the formation of an internationalized medical care platform in Sanya, which presents a major opportunity for both Sanya and the rest of Hainan, especially as the free trade port enters full operation, making more duty-free medicines and medical devices available locally," said Hu Yulei, director of the Sanya Municipal Health Commission.
Hainan's Sanya opens first national dental specialty center
