THE MARKETS

Festive Shopping

Retail spending shot up as Chinese consumers opened up their wallets during the Spring Festival holiday this year (January 22-28).

Traditional festival goods, including food, fireworks, jewelry, clothing and household appliances, all witnessed soaring sales. Monitored large retail and cuisine enterprises across the country reported a sales volume of around 470 billion yuan ($74.2 billion) during the seven-day holiday, up 16.2 percent year on year, according to data from the Ministry of Commerce.

Stable employment and continued wage growth are major factors behind the significant consumer boom, and this should be a needed boon for the economy as the country seeks to rely more on domestic demand.

"Despite high inflation last year, China's consumer market is bursting with vitality," said Lu Zhengwei, chief economist with the Industrial Bank Ltd. "It shows that China's efforts to stimulate consumption is yielding results."

Eyeing China

Huntsman Advanced Materials (Huntsman AdMat), a leading global manufacturer of epoxy adhesives, aerospace composites and electrical insulating materials, said its business in China will open a new chapter in 2012.

China's industrial upgrade creates a huge demand for advanced materials, and this means huge business potential for Huntsman AdMat, said Steen Weien Hansen, the company's Asia Pacific region vice president.

Many key industries that China encourages during the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15) are in the fields where Huntsman AdMat has strength, said Hansen.

The company will strengthen products for wind and solar energy, power generation and clean-energy vehicles. It also plans to combine its strong heritage of material innovation with its local business in China.

The company is building a new research and development center in Shanghai, which will be a world-class facility with 355 staff and put into use in the first half of 2013, said Hansen.