by stella qiu and ryan woo beijing over the weekend crowds packed a former industrial warehouse in beijing as the china fashion week got underway with models strutting maskless on a square runway and guests oblivious to social distancing norms similarly vibrant scenes are being seen elsewhere in china as consumers return to cinemas live performances and restaurants to many they indicate a latesummer recovery in chinese household spending is broadening and propelling the next stage of the economic recovery this august sales in the domestic apparel market turned from negative to positive zhang qinghui chairman of the china fashion designers committee told reuters last week advt i think the numbers for september or even the fourth quarter will be better sales of consumer goods a proxy for consumption in china rose across the board at the end of the third quarter led by auto purchases as household incomes returned to positive growth and employment conditions improved after being slammed by the covid19 pandemic the recovery made china a lone bright spot in the retail world and a major source of earnings for global consumer brands from starbucks to louis vuitton still chinese spending on services lagged that on goods and sectors such as hospitality and catering sector fared particularly badly due to social distancing rules restrictions on operating hours and caps on capacity but with the easing of curbs gathering pace in the third quarter the hospitality sector is poised to accelerate its recovery already its contraction in output narrowed in the third quarter versus the previous three months the services industry had been the most affected by covid now with restrictions being lifted the industry is gradually emerging from its downturn which would provide a strong boost to the broad recovery in the consumer market said ernan cui analyst at gavekal dragonomics we expect growth would return to precovid levels by the end of the year live music septembers retail sales growth was still a third of precovid19 levels but economists expect the overall consumer market would stage a sharp rebound in coming months after entertainment venues from cinemas to ktvs reopened in august advt on oct 1 the first day of the golden week holiday chinas box office raked in 745 million yuan 11142 million the highest singleday sales in 2020 and the secondbest ever for the holiday and during the eightday national day break china saw 637 million domestic tourists though the number was only 79 of last years total weve returned to our old habits said a 57yearold shanghai retiree surnamed chen who went on a 22day selfdrive tour in western xinjiang region with her friends in beijing local rock bands have been playing to enthusiastic crowds each weekend at the temple bar nestled in beijings many winding hutong alleyways since the bar resumed such live gigs in september business is more or less back to precovid levels said a staff at the bar all we need right now is a vaccine with