Virus Uncertainty for China’s Year of Ox Suppliers

WUHAN, China (AP) – Lively red lanterns stand along an alley in Wuhan, China, but customers just walk in. Around the corner, Gong Linhua remembers earlier years when her shop was full and the street outside was full of snacks.

“This is the first time in 20 years I’m in this situation,” said the seller of Lunar New Year decorations. At 60, she is considering retiring if the economy does not continue.

Even in China, where COVID-19 is largely under control and economic growth has accelerated to 6.5% in the last three months of 2020, recovery is uneven, and new outbreaks are dampening business for some.

The winter brought China’s biggest revival to date with more than 2,000 new cases and two deaths in January. The numbers are small compared to most other countries, but enough for concerned officials to limit travel and activities for the New Year, one of the biggest holidays of the year.

It is a blow to airlines, trains, hotels and restaurants and a reversal of the last major holiday in October, when tourism fell. Near the bottom of the food chain are the stores that stocked up on ornaments for the Year of the Ox.

With about two more weeks until New Year’s Day on February 12, Wang Cuilan remained optimistic, even though sales so far have been about half a normal year.

She and her husband have been running a shop on the alley near Gong’s shop for about 20 years. The business world for hotels and entertainment venues, their customers with large tickets, are also lower orders for decorations, she said.

This year is worse for sales than last year. Wuhan, the city that had the biggest burden of the pandemic in China, was closed just two days before the lunar new year in 2020. By that time, most of the Rat items were already sold.

But some customers came in last week after a brief scare for viruses in Wuhan kept people at home earlier this month.

“If the epidemic situation remains stable and if there is good weather, I believe they will all be sold out within the last ten or more days,” Wang said.

Matters were not the only thing on her mind. The lunar new year is when families reunite. For many migrant workers, who leave their hometowns for better paid work, it is one trip back each year.

Wang asked her if her 26-year-old daughter, who works in the neighboring province of Hunan, would miss New Year at home for the second year in a row.

The government has not banned holiday travel, but strongly discourages it. Many cities require multiple negative COVID test results for outsiders, both before and after their arrival.

“She wants to come back,” Wang said. “She will return if the government does not take stricter measures.”

Travel by car, plane and train, according to the Ministry of Transport and State Media, looks about 75% in the first three days of the holiday season, which began on Thursday. The ministry predicted that travel would decrease by 40% during the 40-day period compared to 2019.

Economic forecasters believe the overall impact could be limited because factories, shops and farms could continue to operate instead of closing for a week or longer, as is usual for the holidays.

As dusk fell in Wuhan, the Moon New Year’s vendors began bringing in their wares and plucking giant lanterns one by one from outside shelves and packing them in boxes filled with toy oxen. Wang’s son and cousin helped pack her shop.

Any items with an ox theme that are not sold are likely to be written off and discarded. In the Chinese zodiac, an animal only appears once every 12 years.

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Associated Press author Joe McDonald in Beijing contributed to this report.