Spring Festival online shopping boom sets optimistic tone for 2025

China's month-long online shopping event for the Spring Festival has delivered a strong performance, setting a positive tone for 2025.

Initiated by the Ministry of Commerce, the event ran from Jan. 7 to Feb. 5, with China's national average daily online retail sales rising by 6.2 percent year-on-year during this period.

With the ongoing implementation and expansion of trade-in policies for consumer goods, online sales of eligible products, such as home appliances, experienced significant growth. For example, during the shopping event, online sales of dishwashers and water purifiers increased by 71.8 percent and 47.4 percent year-on-year, respectively.

The Spring Festival also boosted tourism spending, with online travel sales increasing by 35.2 percent. Notably, tourism products centered around "intangible cultural heritage" and "folk culture" saw even greater growth, with online sales surging by 407.7 percent and 109.8 percent, respectively.

Additionally, the cultural entertainment sector experienced a strong rise during the festive season, with online sales growing by 55.5 percent year-on-year.

Moreover, since the launch of the 2025 National Time-Honored Brands Carnival in early January - jointly organized by the Ministry of Commerce, China Media Group (CMG), and the Beijing municipal government - online and offline sales from the event have exceeded 1.6 billion yuan (about 220 million U.S. dollars).

More initiatives aimed at boosting consumption, focusing on traditional festivals, key holidays, and large-scale exhibitions, are expected to follow.

Spring Festival online shopping boom sets optimistic tone for 2025

China's electricity consumption, a key barometer of economic activity, rose six percent year on year in April, official data showed Tuesday.

Power use totaled 820.5 billion kilowatt-hours last month, according to the National Energy Administration.

A breakdown of the data showed that power consumed by the primary industry rose 2 percent year on year to 11.2 billion kilowatt-hours, while power consumed by the secondary industry increased 5.3 percent to 558.4 billion kilowatt-hours.

Within the secondary industry, industrial power use rose 5.5 percent year on year to 553.8 billion kilowatt-hours, while electricity consumption by high-tech equipment manufacturing climbed 10.1 percent to 105 billion kilowatt-hours.

Power used by the tertiary industry reached 151.7 billion kilowatt-hours in April, up 8.9 percent year on year. The charging and battery swapping service sector and internet data services reported rapid growth in electricity consumption, rising 61.9 percent and 42.8 percent, respectively.

Electricity consumption by residents rose 6 percent from a year earlier to 99.2 billion kilowatt-hours.

In the first four months of the year, China's total power use exceeded 3.33 trillion kilowatt-hours, up 5.4 percent year on year, the data showed.

China's power use up 6 pct in April