Mooncake ban may be too late to halt extravagance

When President Xi Jinping ordered government officials to lay off the banqueting and sorghum-liquor guzzling over the Lunar New Year, bai jiu sales plummeted and luxury restaurants in Beijing and Shanghai were hit hard.

But mooncake sellers may have dodged a bullet this Mid-Autumn Festival. Analysts and hoteliers say a government mooncake ban comes too late to make a serious impact.

Authorities announced on Wednesday - a month before the festival - that officials were barred from buying mooncakes and presents or hosting dinners with public funds. This would help eliminate "extravagant waste" during the festival and National Day celebrations, Xinhua reported.

"That was more about sending a message," CLSA investment analyst Mariana Kou said. "Hotels and bakeries had begun to take orders for mooncakes weeks ago. And the ban for government officials doesn't affect the middle class, which has increasingly chosen to buy expensive mooncake varieties in recent years."

An anti-mooncake editorial in People's Daily said on Thursday that "polite reciprocity, when overdone, becomes a kind of squandering of cash".

A spokesman for the Hilton Beijing said its mooncake sales were better this year than last year. A spokesman for Hong Kong-based The Peninsula, which has mooncake retail outlets in Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, said he had not noticed a significant difference this year. The Four Seasons Hotel in Beijing said it started taking mooncake orders in July.