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

Officials from the European Union (EU) and Finland have voiced concerns after the White House said it has been discussing "a range of options" to acquire Greenland, including the use of the military.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas told a press briefing in Cairo on Thursday that the message from the U.S. is "extremely concerning," and "not really helping the stability of the world."

Kallas called on all parties to stick to international law, adding that relevant response measures has been discussed among EU members.

"The international law is very clear, and we have to stick to it. It is clear that it is the only thing that protects smaller countries, and that is why it is in the interest of all of us. And we discussed this today, as well, that we uphold the international law on all levels," she said.

Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen on Thursday described recent remarks by U.S. President Donald Trump and members of his administration on Greenland as "worrying," while reiterating Finland's support for Denmark and Greenland's right to self-determination.

"Finland and the other Nordic countries have exceptional expertise in Arctic conditions, and we are happy to make use of that together with our North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies to strengthen Arctic security, but it cannot be done by threatening allies," she said at a press conference at Finnish parliament after an extraordinary meeting of the parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee.

Johannes Koskinen, chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said it was "unprecedented" for threats of violence to be made within NATO against another member in connection with seizing territory, adding that such threats run counter to the United Nations Charter and that their inconsistency with international law should be underscored at all levels.

EU, Finnish officials express concerns over US remarks on Greenland