China sees strong spike in Qingming Festival spending

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China

China sees strong spike in Qingming Festival spending

2025-04-07 17:21 Last Updated At：17:37

Consumption continued to heat up during the three-day Qingming Festival holiday from Friday to Sunday, as China's consumer goods trade-in programs have gained traction, and its diversified cultural offerings have stimulated new spending needs. At a car dealership in Wuhan City of central China's Hubei Province, consumers are keen to test drive a new energy vehicle with outstanding battery life as the province has beefed up its support for electric car purchase.

"The maximum subsidy for replacing a used car is 44,000 yuan (about 6,000 U.S. dollars), which is quite attractive to me," said a consumer surnamed Wan. In Shanghai, the Bingang shopping mall started trial operation during the holiday and provides citizens and tourists with a wide range of entertainment experiences by empowering more than a dozen performing arts and entertainment spaces of different sizes with high technology.

"We have introduced more than 20 different types of pan-entertainment experiences. We hope to create a destination for cultural entertainment-induced consumption by gathering different types of entertainment," said Wu Jiuying, marketing manager of the Shanghai Bingang shopping mall.

The Qingming Festival holiday has also given a boost to the domestic box office, with dozens of films released.

As of 21:00 on Sunday, China's total box office revenue for the three-day holiday had surpassed 377 million yuan (approximately 51.5 million U.S. dollars), according to data from online platforms.

The U.S. produced film "A Minecraft Movie", Chinese crime thriller "We Girls", animated blockbuster "Ne Zha 2", crime drama "Mumu" and police action movie "Fox Hunt" are currently ranked as the top five.

April 4 marked this year's Qingming Festival, also known as Tomb-Sweeping Day, a traditional Chinese festival for people to pay tribute to the deceased and to worship their ancestors. Increasing numbers of people nowadays also use the holiday as an occasion to make spring outing and enjoy leisure entertainment.

Russia strikes Ukrainian targets, Ukraine repels multiple Russian attacks

2025-04-10 13:49 Last Updated At：14:07

Russia said on Wednesday that its forces had continued to strike Ukrainian military targets, while Ukraine reported the same day that it had repelled multiple Russian attacks.

A statement from the Russian Defense Ministry said the Russian troops struck a Ukrainian tactical missile production enterprise, a workshop building producing small bombs for drones and other strategic objectives.

Meanwhile, Russian military operations targeted Ukrainian personnel and military equipment in multiple locations, including Kharkov, Donetsk and Lugansk, while the Russian air defense systems shot down over 300 Ukrainian drones.

Furthermore, the ministry accused the Ukrainian government of four attacks on Russian energy infrastructure over the past 24 hours.

On the same day, the General Staff of Ukrainian Armed Forces reported that its forces had repelled the Russian attacks in the Pokrovsk direction.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the Russian forces continued to launch operations in the Kharkov and Sumy regions, but Ukrainian military's actions in Russia's border region of Belgorod can prevent the Russian forces from launching new attacks in the Kharkov and Sumy directions.

He also noted that in the past 24 hours, Russia launched 55 drones towards targets in Ukraine, with multiple residential areas being attacked and civilian infrastructure suffering severe damage.