Auto shows drive up holiday consumption

Auto shows now held across China are driving up consumption during the five-day May Day Holiday, which started on Thursday.

Auto Shanghai 2025, one of the world's largest automotive exhibitions, which concluded on Friday after a 10-day run, drew approximately 1.01 million visitors from both home and abroad, including 63,000 overseas participants from 97 countries and regions.

The event was deliberately timed to coincide with the May Day holiday and introduced exclusive consumer vouchers that spanned cultural, tourism, commercial, and sports sectors, generating over one million yuan (about 137,526 U.S. dollars) in total spending.

"Through the ticket purchase app for the Shanghai Auto Show, we involved some other tourism and cultural events so that people could visit the auto show while making trips to other renowned tourist attractions in Shanghai for leisure," said Gu Chunting, vice chairman of the Council for the Promotion of International Trade Shanghai.

As the Shanghai Auto Show wrapped up, the Suzhou International Auto Show opened on Thursday, taking over the spotlight. Covering a floor space of over 100,000 square meters, the event in east China's Jiangsu Province gathered more than 100 global automotive brands and over 1,000 popular vehicle models. Coupled with various favorable policy subsidies, the show has fully unleashed the five-day holiday consumption potential.

"The state's trade-in subsidy, Suzhou's new energy vehicle subsidy, and various car purchase incentives, plus exclusive promotional policies offered by major automakers for the five-day auto show, have combined to create an optimal opportunity of the year for consumers to acquire a vehicle," said Peng Jianming, an event organizer.

Over 80 cities across the country have held nearly 100 auto shows on various scales during the May Day holiday this year.

At these auto shows, intelligent and new energy vehicles (NEVs) have become top-selling products. Data reported that NEVs at many auto shows account for more than 60 percent of the transactions, reflecting the greater popularity of green consumption concept.

Auto shows drive up holiday consumption

Auto shows drive up holiday consumption

Auto shows drive up holiday consumption

The People's Bank of China (PBOC), China's central bank, said Friday that it signed a memorandum of understanding with the Central Bank of Egypt on Thursday, under which the two sides will strengthen bilateral financial cooperation, promote settlement in local currencies, and collaborate in the areas of central bank digital currencies and digital innovation.

Pan Gongsheng, governor of the PBOC, noted that financial and economic ties between China and Egypt are gathering pace, with bilateral trade rising steadily.

In the face of external uncertainties, the two central banks should continue to deepen practical collaboration in areas such as local-currency swaps and settlements, connectivity of payment and settlement systems, investment and financing in financial markets, and the establishment of financial institutions in each other's countries, Pan said. These efforts will provide more efficient and convenient services for enterprises of both countries in terms of trade, investment and financing, and will further consolidate and deepen the China-Egypt comprehensive strategic partnership, he added.

Central banks of China, Egypt vow to deepen financial cooperation