Chinese Consulate General in Hamburg holds Spring Festival reception

China

Chinese Consulate General in Hamburg holds Spring Festival reception

2026-02-09 16:01 Last Updated At：21:27

Chinese Consulate General in Hamburg on Wednesday held a reception to celebrate the Chinese New Year, featuring artistic performances and the display of promotional videos of China Media Group (CMG)'s Spring Festival Gala.

The Spring Festival, which lands on Feb 17 this year, is the start of the Chinese New Year. This year's Spring Festival marks the beginning of the Year of the Horse -- the seventh of the 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac.

The Spring Festival is the grandest traditional holiday for the Chinese people, and watching the Spring Festival Gala on television is a cherished part of the celebrations in hundreds of millions of Chinese homes.

Chinese Consul General in Hamburg Lin Dong said in his remarks that over the past year, China's economic and social development has made steady progress, with new quality productive forces being accelerated and high-level opening-up continuing to advance.

The China-Germany all-round strategic partnership has entered a new decade, and the two sides have maintained sound momentum in practical cooperation and people-to-people and cultural exchanges, Lin noted.

On behalf of the city government, Michaela Peponis, state councillor of the Hamburg Authority for School, Family and Vocational Education, delivered remarks extending Spring Festival greetings to the Chinese people in northern Germany.

She said Hamburg attaches great importance to friendly exchanges with China and is willing to continue to deepen exchanges and cooperation with Chinese localities on the basis of existing cooperation.

A promotional video of the CMG's Spring Festival Gala played at the reception vividly showcases, through refined audiovisual presentation and lively images, the unique charm of the festival and the spirits of contemporary China, drawing the attention of more than 400 guests in attendance.

After watching the video, the guests said it has enabled them to more intuitively experience the cultural connotations and festive atmosphere embodied in the Chinese Spring Festival.

"I am very delighted to see so many innovative elements in the promotional video of this year's Spring Festival Gala. I also look forward to closer exchanges with my Chinese counterparts. I wish everyone good luck in the Year of the Horse," said Axel Mattern, CEO of Port of Hamburg Marketing.

"The performances in the promotional video are magnificent, and they make me very much look forward to seeing the full program. I also envy all those who will be able to watch and experience it in person on site. The singing, martial arts and technological innovation are all amazing," said Gabriele Kostorz, head of foreign affairs and international news from Hamburg-headquartered broadcaster Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR).

Price hike of seven major categories drives China's CPI in March: analyst

Seven of the eight major categories of commodities and services that make up China's consumer price index (CPI) have risen in March, said an analyst after the country's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released the latest data on Friday.

The latest data showed China's CPI, a main gauge of inflation, rose 1 percent year on year in March, and the core CPI, which excludes food and energy prices, increased 1.1 percent year on year.

Among them, prices of industrial consumer goods grew by 2.2 percent, an increase of 1.1 percentage points from the previous month, contributing about 0.67 percentage points to the year-on-year CPI increase.

Specifically, the prices of gold jewelry, household appliances and clothing all went up, while gasoline prices turned from a decline to a rise.

"Of the eight major categories of commodities and services that make up the CPI, seven recorded price increases and one saw a decline, namely the residential category. Specifically, driven by strong seasonal demand, a rise in clothing prices pushed up the overall price of the apparel category year on year. The price of the transportation and communication category shifted from a decline to a year-on-year increase. Meanwhile, boosted by growing resident travel demand, prices for travel agency services also rose year on year," said He Xiaoying, deputy director at the analysis and forecasting division of the price monitoring center under the National Development and Reform Commission.

Friday's data also showed that the producer price index (PPI), which measures costs for goods at the factory gate, returned to year-on-year growth in March, ending a 41-month streak of decline.

The PPI rose 0.5 percent year on year in March, reversing a 0.9 percent drop in February, according to the NBS.

NBS statistician Dong Lijuan attributed the turnaround mainly to imported inflationary pressures and improved supply-demand dynamics in some domestic industries.

Peng Xiaozhen, an analyst at Sublime China Information Company Limited, an institute specializing in providing information on Chinese commodity market, said overall, China's PPI is set to recover.

"International energy markets experienced wide fluctuations, and rising costs pushed up prices across the entire petrochemical industrial chain. Boosted by higher energy and chemical product prices, the rebound trend of China's PPI was further consolidated and overall, its recovery is going to continue," said Peng.