DINING OUT

The combined sales of retail and catering enterprises in China rose 8.5 percent year on year to a new high of 1.01 trillion yuan (about 150 billion US dollars) from Feb 4 to 10, according to the latest statistics from the Ministry of Commerce.

Lunar New Year's Eve dinners, family reunion feasts and party dinners with relatives and friends dominated the festival dining consumption, but a lot more Chinese chose not to cook this year, resulting in an increase in Lunar New Year's Eve take-out orders by various degrees in different cities.

In North China's Tianjin municipality for instance, 36 major restaurants received 12,000 orders for Lunar New Year's Eve dinners, up 5.3 percent year on year. Beijing's major restaurants saw their revenue up by more than 10 percent during the holiday compared with the same period last year.

The number of orders for fully- or half-cooked dinners sold online rose noticeably as more Chinese ordered ready to eat meals through e-commerce platforms or hired a chef to cook meals at home.

On one online ordering platform, the number of orders for Lunar New Year's Eve dinners increased 107 percent, said the ministry.