Citizens engaged in a variety of activities during the holiday week, including shopping, dining out, reading, playing sports and visiting temple fairs. The Ditan Park temple fair in Beijing had more than 900,000 visitors, an increase of 20 percent from that of last year.

100 Million Euro Factory

While some Western firms have pulled their assets out of China, some Chinese enterprises, on the contrary, have been seeking to build factories overseas.

Sany Heavy Industry Co., Ltd., one of China's top industrial machinery producers, signed an agreement with Germany's North Rhine-Westphalia Government to invest 100 million euros to build a research and development center and manufacturing base there. It would be China's largest industry investment in Europe.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and German Chancellor Angela Merkel attended the signing ceremony during Wen's recent "trip of confidence" to Europe.

Sany expects to recover the cost in about seven years and have an annual output of 3,000 engineering machines at the plant. The manufacturing base will mainly focus on the European market.

To explain its rationale for setting up a factory in Europe where labor costs are much higher than in China, Sany said that most of the spare parts for its products, such as motor chassis, fuel pumps and engines, were imported from Europe. Setting up a factory there could save high transportation costs, fully utilize the most advanced resources and enhance the company's brand recognition, it said.

More Investment in Power

The government will invest 580 million yuan ($85 million) in new-energy power plants in 2009, dedicated to developing nuclear and wind power.

In early February, China held a national-level energy conference, the first of its kind in 17 years since the energy ministry was dismantled in 1992.

According to the energy development plan adopted at the conference, the country will begin constructing three nuclear power stations this year in Sanmen of Zhejiang, Haiyang of Shandong and Taishan of Guangdong, all with a collective production capacity of 8.4 million kilowatts.

Meanwhile, it will take about 10 years for the country to build large-scale wind power plants in Gansu, Inner Mongolia, Hebei and Jiangsu.

Zhang Guobao, Vice Minister of the National Development and Reform Commission, said that power enterprises would face continuous large losses on declining power demand and the slowing world economy, but it also would be a good opportunity for China to optimize the development of its power industry. He said shrinking demand provided a good chance to shut down small thermal power plants, coalmines and refineries that consume large amounts of energy and have outdated technology.

Steel Spring

Although the broader Chinese economy still needs some time to reverse its downward trend, initial signs of recovery in the steel sector are coming to light.

Average steel prices have seen a prolonged rally over the past two months, indicating rebounding market confidence, according to a recent report in the China Securities Journal. Moreover, the country's daily steel production capacity has been rising, a sign of strengthening market demand, the report said.

Analysts say the sector's rebound has largely been driven by the government's aggressive stimulus plans that have sparked huge demand for raw materials. This would effectively help heal the wounds of steel companies that incurred painful losses last year, they said.

The steel sector recorded a dizzying loss of 47.6 billion yuan ($6.95 billion) in the fourth quarter of last year, 61 percent of which was by the country's 71 large and medium-sized steelmakers, said Xu Xiangchun, a steel analyst with Mysteel.com, in an interview with the newspaper.

Xu blamed the sector's downturn on last year's price slump and overstocked inventories. But with iron and steel prices rebounding this year and steelmakers writing off inventory impairments, the sector is bound for a solid recovery, he said.