As China celebrated its most important festival, the Chinese
Lunar New Year or
Spring Festival, foreign companies across the country cashed in
on the celebrations, capitalizing on the country's mammoth
consumption power.
"Dragon dancing," a traditional Chinese dance and acrobatic
performance, attracted hordes of shoppers in front of a Japanese
department store in Chengdu, capital of southwest China's
Sichuan Province.
Adorned with traditional Lunar New Year decorations, the Chengdu
outlet of Ito-Yokado Co Ltd also handed out free nian gao
(Lunar New Year cake made of glutinous rice flour) and dog-shaped
decorations to customers (This year is the "Year of the Dog" in
accordance with Chinese lunar calendar).
"We began to work out sales strategies and promotional
activities four months ago," said Nobutaka Shiroki, general manager
of the Japanese chain store.
"Our efforts have paid off because turnover over the past week
is almost five times the average," Shiroki said.
For him, the Spring Festival is always the busiest period in the
year. In addition, he usually gets valuable commercial information
for next year's sales.
The Spring Festival is "vigorous, traditional and busy," Shiroki
said.
The movement of a huge number of people during this peak period
creates great business opportunities, said Peter Ho, manager of a
Carrefour store in southwest China's
Chongqing Municipality.
"We should seize the opportunity to create profits," said Ho,
who has not had a day off this past week.
Chengdu-based Kempinski Hotel failed to draw in the customers
last year due to a lack of promotions, according to Liu Yanli,
manager of public relations.
"But this year, we offered festival banquets, decorated the
hotel in the traditional Chinese way, and offered gifts to
customers. All these were quite effective," Liu said.
More than 500,000 foreign-funded companies operate across China.
Foreign direct investments in 2005 was US$60.3 billion, according
to official statistics.
(Xinhua News Agency February 5, 2006)