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Preparation for Spring Festival activities, goods in full swing

China

China

China

Preparation for Spring Festival activities, goods in full swing

2026-01-09 05:53 Last Updated At:15:21

Factories in many places across China have already been operating in full capacity as early as one month before the Spring Festival, the country's grandest traditional festival, to respond to people's ardent hope and enthusiasm for the Chinese New Year.

Spring Festival, or Chinese New Year, falls on Feb 17 this year.

At a lantern plant in Nanli Village in north China's Shanxi Province, from cutting the wire to welding the frame, from pasting the silk cloth to drawing the patterns, nearly 100 workers are working in close collaboration.

In the structuring workshop, workers are using welding torches to weld ordinary iron wires into shapes such as dragons, phoenixes, and horses amidst flying sparks.

Meanwhile, the craftsmen are mounting carefully selected silk fabric onto the iron skeleton, making sure the form of dragon head, leaping horse, and other figures to be upright and dignified.

At a major cut flower farm in Xixian New Area of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, eight production lines are operating at full capacity to meet the demand for the upcoming grand festival.

Each stalk of flower takes only one hour from picking to finished product, ensuring it is shipped to all parts of the country in a fresher state.

The farm offers a variety of flowers, including anthurium, a star product in recent years for its colorful patterns and auspicious meanings.

This kind of flower originally grew only in tropical rainforests, but advanced technology has enabled various flowers to be cultivated in different seasons and regions.

The 50,000-square-meter greenhouse adopted intelligent IoT environmental control system, which can acquire real-time information on temperature, humidity, light, wind speed, and pests and diseases, and technicians can remotely control the system at the terminal to ensure the plants are in optimal growth condition.

Such precision regulation allows flowers to grow vigorously while also blooming according to order demand, thereby improving the supply efficiency during festive periods.

This year's Chinese New Year flower season started taking orders a month earlier than last year, and the current order volume has exceeded 3 million yuan, an increase of 30 percent compared with the same period last year, and the total order amount is expected to exceed 10 million yuan, according to operators.

The flowers are not only sold to many domestic cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Chengdu, but also exported to overseas markets such as Singapore and South Korea.

The thriving business has also boosted local employment. Currently, the dozens of full-time employees at the farm are all from surrounding villages and towns, and the farm also hires hundreds of seasonal temporary workers every year.

Preparation for Spring Festival activities, goods in full swing

Preparation for Spring Festival activities, goods in full swing

China's Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao outlined the key priorities of the 32nd Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Ministers Responsible for Trade Meeting, which opened on Friday in Suzhou, East China's Jiangsu province.

In an interview with CGTN ahead of the two-day meeting, Wang said free trade, digital cooperation and green economy are high on the agenda of the meeting.

"The key areas include advancing regional economic integration and the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific, supporting the World Trade Organization (WTO) in strengthening digital cooperation and developing green economy. At present, the international situation is marked by intertwined turbulence and chaos, with intensified geopolitical instability. The rise of unilateralism and protectionism poses serious challenges to the international economic and trade order, disrupting global and Asia-Pacific development. Against this backdrop, all parties have higher expectations for this trade ministers' meeting, hoping that it can build consensus and deliver outcomes," Wang said.

This year marks China's third time hosting the APEC meetings and the 35th anniversary of its membership.

By 2025, China had become the largest trading partner of 13 APEC economies. Trade between China and APEC economies reached 3.7 trillion U.S. dollars, accounting for 57.8 percent of China's total foreign trade.

China has signed 24 free trade agreements or economic and trade arrangements with 31 countries and regions, including 15 APEC economies. In recent years, China has also completed upgrades of free trade agreements with APEC economies such as Singapore and Peru.

The minister said that China has always been a firm supporter and an important contributor to APEC.

"We have actively shared our vast market and development opportunities with all parties. China's door to the world will only open wider and wider. Facing the common challenges, China will continue to fulfill its responsibilities as a major country, further deepen reform, expand high-standard opening-up, and continue to provide new opportunities for the Asia-Pacific region and the world with its new achievements in Chinese modernization," the minister said.

China's Commerce Minister outlines priorities for 32nd APEC trade ministers' meeting

China's Commerce Minister outlines priorities for 32nd APEC trade ministers' meeting

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