While much of the world was under stay-at-home orders on the first day of 2021, Chinese moviegoers packed into cinemas to watch the romantic comedy Warm Hug and the drama A Little Red Flower, generating the country's biggest New Year's box office on record. The 545 million yuan ($84 million) splashed out on movie tickets was the latest sign that household spending in China is above pre-pandemic levels, mainly thanks to the country's effective suppression of the coronavirus's spread. That's good news for China's economy, as consumption has accounted for the bulk of growth in recent years. Shifting the development model away from investment in housing and industry and toward consumer demand is a key objective for the country's leadership, which wants to ensure sustained levels of economic expansion, though with less debt.
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