BEIJING — 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% 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 Monday, 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% 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% of all Chinese entertainment spending and 40% of sales of premium beer and liquor take 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 were still above 90%, but companies were 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."
