YANTAI -- With the Chinese New Year fast approaching, gold products featuring the mythical animal of the dragon are flying off the shelves in China, as the Chinese lunar year of 2024 will be a Year of the Dragon on the Chinese lunar calendar.

The Spring Festival, also known as the Chinese New Year, is China's most important festival, celebrating the beginning of a new year on the country's traditional calendar. This year's Spring Festival falls on Feb 10.
Taking the fifth place on the Chinese zodiac cycle of 12 animals, the dragon is a legendary creature believed to be the most auspicious of the 12.
As the holiday season gets underway, at a well-known gold retailer in Xicheng District of Beijing, consumers have been snapping up New Year-themed gold products, including bars, necklaces and lucky beads, since one month ago.
"Some merchants will launch zodiac-themed items every year, and I have been selecting these dragon-themed products recently to add more joy to the Chinese New Year. I also think gold products with dragon elements are quite cute," said a consumer there.
Meanwhile, at a gold store in Qingdao City, east China's Shandong Province, a saleswoman said that their newly released dragon-themed zodiac gold bars had already been sold out, with replenishment of stocks underway.
"So far this year, dragon-themed zodiac gold bars have been sold in large quantities, and all the new products were virtually snapped up even one month before the arrival of the Chinese New Year," said Wang Jing, the store manager.
Driven by the robust demand, many gold processors in Shangdong, a major gold producing province in China, are busy rushing orders.
According to a manager of one gold production firm in Yantai City, the workshop has adopted automatic production lines to expand capacity.
"Ahead of the Spring Festival, in order to ensure market supply, we tightened the production schedule and introduced fully automatic production lines. In January, our daily gold production reached a maximum of 489 kilograms, and our daily order value increased by more than 10 million yuan (around 1.41 million U.S. dollars) over the same period of last year. The production is quite busy," said Qi Chunguang, director of the gold refining workshop under the firm.