Another policy lever at China's disposal: the mandatory shopping season. During October's Golden Week holiday – dreamed up a decade ago to boost consumption – retail sales were almost a fifth higher than this year's average weekly take, according to the Ministry of Commerce. Not that the Chinese consumer needed much encouragement. Year-on-year growth in nominal retail sales volumes seems to have troughed at 11.6 per cent in February. Most recent official data in August showed a 15.4 per cent rise, not far off the average 16 per cent rate of the past five years.
中國政府手中有一種政策工具：強制性的購物旺季。10年前，中國政府為了刺激消費，構想出了十一黃金周假期。商務部的數據顯示，今年黃金周期間，全國零售額比平時的平均水平增長了近五分之一。這并不是說中國的消費者需要太多刺激。2月份時，中國名義零售總額的同比增幅似乎已跌至谷底，為11.6%。可是最近一次官方數據顯示，到了8月份，名義零售總額同比增幅為15.4%，與過去5年16%的平均增幅相差無幾。