Millions of Chinese are moving as Lunar New Year nears

Wednesday, January 18, 2023

There are millions of urban workers were on the move across China on Wednesday ahead of the expected Friday peak of its Chinese Lunar New Year mass migration, as China’s leaders looked to get its COVID-battered economy moving.

Unfettered when officials last month ended three years of some of the world’s tightest COVID-19 restrictions, workers streamed into railway stations and airports to head to rural hometowns, sparking fears of a broadening virus outbreak.

Economists are scrutinizing the holiday season, known as the Spring Festival, for glimmers of rebounding consumption across the world’s second largest economy after new GDP data on Tuesday revealed a sharp economic slowdown in China.

While some analysts expect that recovery to be slow, China’s Vice-Premier Liu He declared to the World Economic Forum in Switzerland on Tuesday that China was open to the world after three years of pandemic isolation.

National Immigration Administration officials said that, on average, half a million people had been moved in or out of China per day since its borders opened on January 8.

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