Crisis can't kill Chinese confidence

Premier Wen Jiabao expressed optimism about China's ability to battle the impact of the current global economic crisis and emphasized the importance for the world to maintain confidence against the crisis during his recent European tour.

The Chinese leader's confidence was not groundless. The brisk shopping in consumer markets throughout cities and rural areas in the past "golden week" of Spring Festival was the best evidence of such confidence. According to the Ministry of Commerce, Chinese people spent a total of 290 billion yuan ($42.6 billion) shopping for the lunar new year celebration.

More noteworthy is the fact that the spending was a 13.8 percent growth on the basis of the same period of last year although the global recession is also felt in this country. The optimistic mood was also demonstrated by more than 100 million tourists who traveled to domestic and foreign destinations during the seven days.