Chinese New Year 2023 and national public holidays in China

1. The day of the Chinese lunar New Year in 2023

Year	Chinese New Year day	Chinese zodiac sign
2022	February 1, 2022	Water Tiger
2023	January 22, 2023	Water Rabbit
2024	February 10, 2024	Wood Dragon
2025	January 29, 2025	Wood Snake
2026	February 17, 2026	Fire Horse
2027	February 06, 2027	Fire Goat

2. The official annual public holidays schedule for 2023 in China

On december 8, the State Council has published the official dates of the annual public holidays for 2023. Please find them explained in the below table.

 

traditional festivals	official holidays 2023	working days
New year's day	Sat 31 Dec to Monday 2 January	-
Chinese New Year (农历新年)	Saturday 21 to Friday 27 January	Saturday 28 + Sunday 29 January
Qingming Festival (清明节)	Wednesday 5 April	-
Labor Day (劳动节)	Sat 29 April to Wed 3 May	Sunday 23 April + Saturday 6 May
Dragon boat festival (端午节)	Thursday 22 to Saturday 24 June	Sunday 25 June
Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋节)	Friday 29 September	-
National Day (国庆节)	29 September to 6 October	Saturday 7 + Sunday 8 October

In addition, here are the links to the leave and holiday 2023 calendars valid in Hong-kong and Taiwan.e.

 

3. Impact of the Chinese New Year on your business relationship with China

 

a. A unique annual period that impacts production

The official dates of the next Chinese New Year vacations are confirmed to happen from Saturday 21st to Friday 27th January 2023. That is to say 1 week. As every year in China, this does not mean that all companies' employees will go on vacation and return to work on these dates.

Why ? This period is the only time when factories and manufacturing centers can close for several weeks. For the factory workers, it is the unique and traditional opportunity to join their families, often far away from their workplace.

Anticipate that many manufacturing sites :

 

b. The effects of the New Year and the greater population migration

The New Year means hundreds of millions of people are on travelling. Despite a well-developed national transport network, congestion remains unavoidable. The return of employees is done gradually. As this period is an opportunity for employees to receive their annual bonus before the holidays, it is usual that some of them do not return. They change employer, job or region. This also means that this context must be taken into account if you plan to recruit managers, executives or employees in China.

During the last two Chinese New Year, the sanitary context has confirmed and extended the progressive departures and returns of the labor force. The same situation is expected to occur for the 2023 Chinese New Year.

However, many employees and managers in large cities have not traveled to their home province to reunite with their families. They wanted to avoid the risks associated with the public transportation. They also preferred to avoid quarantine periods, which are quite unpredictable depending on the region.

 

c. The impact on production deadline, containers availability and freight prices

Anticipate that the slowdown, stop and restart of your suppliers' activity will strongly affect their production capacity and delivery lead time. The impact of this period means manufacturing and delivery timing delayed by 3-4 weeks or more. The situation of sharp rise in the cost of raw materials and the temporary shortage of shipping containers in China further complicates the equation.

In November 2021, the shipping containers turnover rate went from 60 days (before the Covid-19 pandemic) to 120 days. This meant waiting 4 months before a container returned to the initial port of loading. While freight rates remained high during the first eight months of 2022, they have started to decrease by 30 to 40% compared to last year. Specialists are betting on a gradual return to more stable rates.

 

d. China travel restrictions being eased

For several months, travel restrictions and visa issuance measures for China have begun to ease. Nevertheless, China's Zero Covid policy continues to prevail. Realistically, we can expect a total reopening of the borders as soon as the assessment of the health risk is deemed stable. A warning sign is that the Hong Kong government has already lifted the mandatory hotel quarantine since september 26.

As early as autumn 2021, isolated outbreaks of Delta and Omicron variants of Covid appeared in several Chinese cities. Devoted to keep the zero-covid policy, the authorities are placing infected populations in quarantine or strict lockdown so as to contain the spread.

Since march 2022, dozens of Chinese cities have been partially or totally locked down. Also aiming to preserve the companies's financial stability, the authorities now allow a company to temporarily reduce its activity and expenses within an official procedure for dormancy status.

• Facing numerous supply difficulties that impacted prices and delivery time, many western importers reorganize their purchasing policy and sourcing of Chinese suppliers or manufacturers.
  
  
• Enjoying sometimes a government support plan, some overseas exporters took a chance to prospect new international markets. This included looking for sales opportunities with China distributors and importers.
  
  
• So as to better manage their stocks, local importers saw the opportunity to set up a logistics consolidation center near a port or in one of China's 21 free trade zones. These facilities were either dedicated or shared.
  
  
• Some companies having the capacity to anticipate long term or timely opportunities decided to set up their own production site or assembly workshop in China. They intend to manufacture and sell locally.

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