BEIJING, Jan. 1 (Xinhua) -- Chinese people have ushered in the New Year with a variety of festive celebrations, holding high hopes for a more vibrant economy and a prosperous life in 2025.
Amidst the chill of Heilongjiang Province, China's easternmost city of Fuyuan embraced the first rays of the country's sunshine in the new year, attracting throngs of tourists ascending to the city's highest lookout point to enjoy the sunrise.
"I've been longing to see the sunrise in Fuyuan for a long time, and this year my dream finally came true," said Ni Zijun, a postgraduate student at Peking University in Beijing.
To celebrate the New Year and further boost the local ice and snow economy, Fuyuan organized an ice marathon on Wednesday, attracting about 2,000 runners from across China. Despite the biting cold, with temperatures plunging to nearly minus 30 degrees Celsius, the participants were undeterred running on a section of the frozen Heilong River.
China in 2023 recorded over 385 million winter leisure visits nationwide, marking a 38 percent increase from the previous year, with related revenue rising by 50 percent.
The tone-setting Central Economic Work Conference held in December last year vowed to foster growth in sectors including the ice and snow economy in 2025.
In the same month, China relaxed its visa-free transit policy, extending the permitted stay period for eligible foreign travelers from the previous either 72 hours or 144 hours to 240 hours, which is likely to attract more international tourists in the new year.
The National Immigration Administration has forecast that the number of inbound and outbound passengers will reach 2.05 million per day during the New Year holiday in China, marking an 18.8 percent increase compared to the previous year.
Saede Liis Nelke, an international student from Estonia at Guangxi Normal University in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, said, following the recent relaxation of the visa-free transit policy, that she plans to bring her family and friends to China in 2025 to experience the diverse cultures here.
The Central Economic Work Conference also urged efforts to vigorously boost consumption, improve investment efficiency and expand domestic demand on all fronts in 2025.
One of the measures expected to boost consumption is the extension of holidays in 2025. Among the new laws and regulations that took effect on Wednesday, one mandates an additional day off for both the Chinese New Year and Labor Day holidays.
For many in China, the turn of the year is also an opportunity to replace old furniture and appliances with new ones.
Zhang Zun, a home appliance sales assistant at a mall in north China's Hebei Province, said that the mall typically sells a few dozen washing machines each month. "However, after the mall introduced the trade-in program in September, monthly sales reached up to over 1,000 units."
Under the nationwide trade-in program announced in March last year, sales of a wide range of consumer goods -- ranging from home appliances to electric bicycles and new-energy passenger cars -- have collectively surpassed 1 trillion yuan (about 139.11 billion U.S. dollars) in revenue as of December 2024.
In Nanning, the capital of Guangxi, many residents and tourists gathered at a local amusement park on New Year's Eve to watch a drone show, offering a greener and smarter alternative to traditional fireworks.
The low-altitude economy in China has flourished in recent years, with an increase in drone manufacturers and expanded applications. The Civil Aviation Administration of China estimates that the country's low-altitude market will soar from 500 billion yuan in 2023 to 1.5 trillion yuan in 2025 and as much as 3.5 trillion yuan in 2035.
Wang Weishi, chairman of a drone service provider based in Nanning, told Xinhua that his company experienced a 30 percent increase in business volume in 2024.
"In the new year, we expect to expand our market in Cambodia and Myanmar," he added.■