CCTV9英语新闻：Some workers begin taking Friday afternoon with two-day weekend

To new measures which aim to give people more free time whilst boosting the country's tourism industry. Some regions of China are extending the two-day weekend for workers to two-and-a-half days. 

 

Two cities in Shanxi and Jiangxi provinces respectively have started to implement it already, with government and public institute staff enjoying the extra few hours off from April 1st. For more on this, we are joined in studio by CCTV's Jin Yingqiao.

 

Q1. This seems to be good news for everyone. Is it?

 

Well, not exactly. Let me explain: it all started last August, when China's cabinet, the State Council, issued a guideline to boost tourism investment and consumption. For the first time, it put forward the notion of encouraging people to take the Friday afternoon off and make a two-and-a-half day weekend. It received a positive response from local governments and since then eight provinces have rolled out their localized versions, encouraging those who "have the conditions" to go ahead. 

 

So how exactly does it work? Well, Ji'an city in East China's Jiangxi province says that, from April to October every year, all regional government and public institution workers can enjoy two Friday afternoons off per month while other institutions can also reference this practice. 

 

But one thing needs to be clarified. The precondition is that you still have to work 40 hours a week. That means you'll have to make up the hours at another time. How do they do that? Ji'an, the same city, says the "off Friday afternoons" can be accounted for in annual leave, but they can also work two extra hours in the week. 

 

Well, in many areas in China, the notion of annual leave is not fully carried out. Many are too busy to take it, so it seems a good idea to take Friday afternoons instead.

 

Q2. This is essentially a move to boost the tourism industry, isn't it? How big a market is that now?

 

A2, Indeed, when people aren't working, they're consuming. Let's look at some data. During the most recent Lunar New Year Holiday, there were over 300 million tourists around the country, a year-on-year increase of more than 15%. In just a week, revenue from tourism was more than 360 billion yuan. 

 

A lot of famous scenic spots harnessed the drawing power of "People Mountain People Sea". Some of the other bright spots going to the movies. During the Spring Festival and February 14th's Valentine's Day, there was a whopping box office intake of 3.6 billion yuan. And also, going abroad, six million people went abroad during the past Spring Festival. 

 

In 2015, Chinese consumers spent more than US$110 billion on luxury products, 78 percent of that was spent overseas. Including weekends, China has more than 100 public holidays and that's at the level of a typical, mid-tier developed country, but for paid leave, a survey shows, on average, Chinese only get 10 days, one of the lowest tallies in the world.