The week-long National Day holiday from October one saw retail sales in China touching nearly 47 billion US dollars, up 16 percent from a year earlier, state media said Tuesday.
This was 1.5 percentage points higher than last year, the China Securities Journal said quoting figures from the Ministry of Commerce.
China introduced three annual “Golden Weeks” in 1999, also including the traditional Spring Festival early in the year and the May One Labour Day holiday.
This was to boost the economy at a time when it was reeling from the impact of the Asian financial crisis.
These measures saw a double-digit economic growth of the country for four consecutive years.
Though these holidays are not seen as essential to boost the country’s economy, the “Golden Weeks” are still seen by policy makers as serving a purpose, as they help boost consumption, a relative weak engine of growth in China, when compared with net exports and investment.
