Global slump casts a pall over Chinese New Year
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[quote]Jan 17, 1:33 PM (ET)

By JOE McDONALD

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BEIJING (AP) - Painter Wei Haibin is carefully weighing every purchase as he heads home to Hebei province for China's biggest family holiday - a time when the economy typically enjoys a bounce.

"The total that I spend buying things for the Lunar New Year will be about half of what I spent last year," he said. "Though I will probably spend the same amount buying gifts for family and friends in my hometown because it's a matter of face, I will be really tight on the things I buy for myself."

Wei's income from his landscape paintings, which are sold in Europe, fell 80 percent last year, and the Year of the Ox seems likely to bring more belt-tightening. Squeezed by the global slowdown, consumers and companies in countries that celebrate the Lunar New Year, which begins this year on Jan. 26, are slashing their spending on traditionally lavish gifts, liquor and banquets.

In China, where many businesses count on the equivalent of a Christmas shopping boom for a big share of annual sales, the blow will hurt. It could further depress China's falling growth rate just as Beijing is rolling out a multibillion-dollar plan to boost consumer spending.

"We would estimate spending would be off 20 to 30 percent this year, which is rather critical for quite a large number of retailers and certainly restaurants," said Sam Mulligan, director of market research firm Data-Driven Marketing Asia, which surveyed 4,500 consumers in five major cities in December. "All of these areas are going to be hit hard."

Mulligan said 35 percent of all Chinese entertainment spending and 40 percent of sales of premium beer and liquor takes place over the weeklong Lunar New Year holiday.

At the International Exhibition Hotel in Dongguan, a manufacturing city in China's south that has been battered by the drop in exports, companies that splurged on lobster for employee parties in 2008 are ordering pork this year. A hotel saleswoman said bookings of banquet rooms are still above 90 percent, but companies are spending about half as much per table this year, about 2,000 yuan ($290).

Companies also are scaling down employee lotteries - a common feature of holiday parties.

"Prizes used to be cash - thousands of yuan (hundreds of dollars) for the top prize - or MP3 players, mobile phones or computers," said Nancy Zheng, a saleswoman for the Sofitel Royal Lagoon Hotel in Dongguan. "This year, most prizes are blankets, quilts and microwave ovens."

Independent economists expect China's growth rate to fall this year as low as 5 percent, down from an estimated 9 percent last year and 13 percent in 2007.

The symbolism of the Year of the Ox - an animal that stands for calm, hard work and risk-aversion - is well suited to China's struggle to revive its economy. By contrast, the Rat, whose year is now ending, is said to be charming and clever but cunning and selfish.

Hardest-hit have been areas that depend on exports, which fell 2.8 percent in December compared with 2007 - a painful decline from double-digit growth earlier in 2008.

Thousands of factories in the southeast that made toys, shoes and other goods for export have closed, and the now-jobless migrants they employed have returned to their villages without annual bonuses to pay for New Year gifts and festivities. While many gifts are modest - oranges, chocolate or liquor - failure to bring them home could be a source of shame, and especially painful for parents who work away from home most of the year.

Other companies are expected to cut or withhold bonuses to preserve cash so they can outlast the slump. In a bid to hit sales targets before the economy declines further, one liquor producer has told distributors they must sell 25 percent of their 2009 quota in January alone or risk losing their franchises, Mulligan said.

"If they are doing that, they don't have an awful lot of confidence in how the rest of the year is going to look," he said.

Some companies say they plan to pay bonuses, throw parties and give gifts as usual, however, su

Anal (where did you get that name),

 

I don't claim to speak for everyone on SP but consider this:

 

1. Regardless of where you think the PRC is headed the fact remains that it is a brutal totalitarian regime that denies the Chinese people what many of us see as the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

 

2. The PRC regime illegally occupies the territories of other peoples over whom it has no right to forcibly govern. These people include, among others, the Tibetans, the Uighurs and Mongolians.

 

3. It is ironic you mention Western imperialism. The West has learnt from its mistakes and moved on. It seems, however, the PRC wants to show us it is 200 years behind everyone else and make the same mistakes. Its behavior in Africa is abominable.

 

4. The PRC regime has aggressive intent towards a number of other foreign territories including, but not limited to, Taiwan, the Spratlys, Mongolia, the Russian Far East, Vietnam, Korea and the Western Pacific generally. It has made no secret of its ambition to build a navy that can challenge the US 7^th Fleet in order to fulfill this intent. Note the US has not made any territorial or other threats against China.

 

5. The PRC is a thieving regime. Not only does it steal from its own people (even literally in the form of body parts) but other countries also. While I acknowledge other nations conduct espionage to obtain technology this does not excuse the PRC?s more deliberate attempts to take from others what they are too lazy to develop themselves. The lack of intellectual property legislation within China is an extension of this as is deliberate copying of military equipment purchased from other suppliers.