Catering to the high demand, retail and catering enterprises achieved sales of about 821 billion RMB, up 28.7 percent from last year's record and 4.9 percent from 2019. Let this sink in.

As pointed out by the Ministry of Commerce’s monitoring of key enterprises during the New Year holiday, the sales of jewelry, clothing, communication equipment, home appliances, and digital appliances recorded an increase of 160.8%, 107.1%, 39.0%, and 29.9% respectively compared with the same period last year. In addition to this, the sales of fitness equipment on various e-commerce platforms increased by 49% year-on-year.

While the performance of e-commerce was remarkable, the trends in offline consumption were also encouraging as the average daily passenger flow of shopping centers in 10 first and second-tier cities increased by more than 200% year on year.

All in all, the enhanced performance of the retail sector and emergence of new consumption trends such as online shopping for New Year holiday goods and digital red envelopes among others was highly impressive.

The effective prevention and control of the pandemic that led to the easing of lockdown restrictions in addition to the convenience and safety of online shopping led to the surge in consumption, providing a much-needed impetus to the economy.