HEAT IN CAPITAL MARKET

The widespread Olympic zeal has permeated China's capital market, with investors showing confidence in companies in a variety of Olympic-related fields and entrepreneurs ready to tap opportunities in the ice-snow industry.

Hot sales of Olympic-related products helped increase investment in suppliers. For example, the stock price of Beijing Yuanlong Yato Culture Dissemination Co Ltd, a licensed manufacturer and retailer of the Olympics merchandise, surged nearly 50 percent in the first trading week of the Year of the Tiger, while that of ANTA Sports Products Limited, a leading sports products company, has reached a new high since the start of 2022.

China Mobile Limited also saw its stock price register double-digit growth from Feb 7 to 11, benefiting from its broadcasting rights of the Games and the cooperation with several celebrity athletes.

In the field of infrastructure construction, developers of Olympic venues and hotels such as Jangho Group Co Ltd and China Railway Group Limited also reported rising stock prices.

Analysts from Guoyuan Securities have pointed out the enormous potential for business opportunities in fields such as venue construction, sponsorship services, technical support, energy and transport facilities, as well as the sale of licensed merchandise.

Besides, China's ice-snow sector has attracted an increasing number of enterprises due to its vast potential. More than one third of the country's 21,500 existing ice-snow firms as of January 2022 were registered in the last two years.

Investment and financing of ski-related enterprises have exceeded 185 million yuan ($29 million) since 2021, while the number of new firms in the ice-snow tourism sector rose by 15 percent annually in the 2018-2020 period, industry data shows.

China's ice-snow industry expanded from 270 billion yuan in 2015 to 600 billion yuan in 2020, according to an industry report. The scale of the sector is expected to top 1 trillion yuan by 2025, accounting for about 20 percent of the entire sports industry.