Other than spending time with family and friends, spending money seems no less of a tradition during the lunar New Year. In the past week, the country's economy has done really well and it seems Spring is indeed coming.

Seven days after the Chinese New Year, the festive atmosphere is still in the air, although the holiday has come to an end. As people withdraw from the shopping battlefield and return to daily life and work, here an interesting question: How much did you spend over Spring Festival?

Customers said, "I spent about 3 or 4 thousand yuan. I bought makeup, clothes, shoes and much more. It's the New Year and I need new things too. I don't think the inflation affected shoppers much."

"I bought shoes, a wool coat and some other stuff. Some prices are a few hundred yuan higher than before, but I think people still kept buying anyway."

The country's CPI rose 5.4 percent last year, much higher than the previously expected 4 percent. Although there have been loud complaints about inflation and shrinking pockets, they certainly didn't stop Chinese shoppers from spending more.

Han Liuchao, management department of Grand Pacific Shopping Center, said, "Although prices are rising due to inflation, people still like to shop, especially when everyone celebrates Spring Festival. We received double the amount of customers over the past week."

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. According to data just released by the Ministry of Commerce, in the past week, shops and restaurants across the country pocketed 470 billion yuan, that's about 74 billion US dollars.

Sales records rise year after year, and this time they were 16 percent higher than that of last year. Aside from strong sales growth in festival-related goods, clothes and food, a much more robust growth was recorded in sales of gold. One well known Beijing gold store saw a 58 percent jump in demand over the past seven days.

Meantime, the dragon is also spreading fortune and wealth overseas. Some major outbound tour agencies expected a 35% rise in foreign tours during Spring Festival holiday.

It has been estimated that a total of 5.7 billion dollars spent on luxury goods alone, will have flown to overseas markets during the Christmas and Spring Festival holiday season, another record high. Such buying potential has given a good start to China's economic outlook this year, which begs the next question - how long will the spending spree last?

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