Calendar seller makes his date with despair

Yuquanying Flower and Gifts Market has seen a decline in business after a clampdown on unauthorized government spending.

Public backing

Nearly 80 percent of respondents were strongly in favor of the current anti-corruption efforts, a year-on-year rise of 14.6 percent, according to a survey conducted for the 2013 edition of the Blue Book of Combating Corruption and Upholding Integrity published by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Moreover, in a recent online survey of 90,000 people conducted by China Youth Daily, 93.7 percent strongly supported the regulations to strengthen management of government spending and curb waste by officials.

"We used to send greetings cards and calendars to customers in the name of the bank and always received the same in return. Although the cost was low, it was still a waste - I saw one colleague throw the packages into the bin without even opening them," said Li He, who works for a State-owned bank in Beijing.

However, while the measures have pleased the general public, many people within the gift industry stand to lose their livelihoods.

"Normally, orders from the government and State-owned enterprises, such as banks, post offices and schools, accounted for 80 percent of our sales. But this year we haven't received a single order from any of them," said Sun Mingqi, manager of Beijing Zhonghao Trading Company, the largest calendar retailer in Yongwaicheng market.

"The documents published in October and November have also affected general consumption of our products so sales have declined a lot," he said

Wenzhou in Zhejiang province is a hub of calendar and stationery production. There are more than 200 calendar manufacturers in Cangnan county alone. Their goods account for 80 percent of domestic sales with revenue of 1 billion yuan.

However, since the ban on the use of public funds came into force, 90 percent of Cangnan's calendar manufacturers have had orders canceled and almost every factory is overstocked to the tune of at least 2 or 3 million yuan, according to sources from the Cangnan Calendar Association.

That picture is being seen across Wenzhou, where most of the factories have seen sales slump dramatically, forcing many to close. The few that are still open are only receiving orders from private clients.

"I never expected that one day my life would be so miserable, and that the phone would ring day and night with people pushing me to repay my debts," said Yang Limin, a calendar factory owner in Wenzhou.

For Yan Jirong, a professor at Peking University's School of Government, the industry downturn is an inevitable consequence of change.

"The enforcement of certain policies, especially those related to the economy, will inevitably affect some industries and a large number of people. That's the price of reform," he said.

He explained that in many other countries, members of the general public are the major customers of the gifts and stationery industries, but in China, the sectors have become reliant on high-spending government departments and State-owned businesses.

He was sanguine about the future, though. "For a short time, those industries will be affected and some producers and related businesses will go to the wall. However, in a few years things will improve and the industries will be back on track with ordinary people, not government employees or departments, as their main customers," said Yan.

Yuquanying Flower and Gifts Market is one of the biggest in Beijing. At 10:30 am on Thursday, most of the gift shops were open, but there were few customers. Ads offering transfers of ownership could be seen everywhere.

The situation was no better in the flower zone. A manager, who declined to give his name, said the new anti-graft policies have greatly affected the flower market, especially sales of high-end expensive blooms and those used at conferences.

Mo Ping, 33, the owner of a shop that sells orchids, said she sold only 800 yuan's worth of flowers in the previous four days. "Orchids are generally more expensive than other flowers and ordinary citizens seldom buy them. Most of our customers bought orchids as gifts to cheer up their bosses," she said.

"The new policy has dealt a heavy blow to us. I am considering diversifying the varieties we sell and concentrating on cheaper flowers, ones that ordinary people can afford," she added.