Customers throng in a market during the Spring Festival holiday in this undated photo. [newsphoto]

The figures for central Henan Province, northeastern Heilongjiang Province and Beijing rose 22 percent, 25 percent and 20 percent respectively.

Ninety-five percent of the restaurants in Beijing received reservations for family reunion dinners during the holiday.

Meanwhile, high-end household electric appliances and digital products became hot sellers in major cities.

Sales of flat screen TV sets, including liquid crystal display (LCD) sets and plasma screen sets, accounted for 90 percent of the total sales of color TV sets in Beijing, while the sales of high-end mobile phones soared 40 percent in GOME retail stores in Chongqing.

Motorcycles priced between 3,000 yuan and 5,000 yuan sold well in rural areas of central Hubei Province and eastern Jiangsu Province as more and more farmers rode motorcycles to make New Year visits to relatives and friends.

Farmers' consumption capability is on the rise partly because China's rural cooperative medical care system, under which the government helps fund farmers' medical expenses, will cover 80 percent of counties this year and partly because students in rural areas will be exempted from paying tuition fees in the nine-year compulsory education, said the ministry.

China has three Golden Week holidays every year, including the Spring Festival holiday, May 1 Labor Day holiday and October 1 National Day holiday.

The Chinese government launched Golden Week holidays in 1999, in the hope of encouraging people to spend more money for the benefit of economic growth.

In 2006, the retail sales of China's consumer goods rose 14.5 percent over that in 2005 to 300 billion yuan during the National Day holiday.