The rabbit is one of the cutest animals in the Chinese zodiac, but the demand from consumers for commemorative coins specially minted for the Year of the Rabbit has been particularly muted amid the ongoing Covid-19 outbreak. Some 6.7 million 10-yuan (US$1.47) coins issued by the People’s Bank of China have still not found any takers, nearly a quarter more than similar coins embossed with the tiger zodiac symbol last year, according to data from the PBOC. Nearly 7 per cent of the coins offered to the public between January 5 and 11 are still available, one of the highest totals since the central bank first started issuing commemorative coins in 2003, the Year of the Goat. The Chinese central bank said it would issue 120 million coins on December 26 to celebrate the Lunar New Year. The two-tone, copper-alloy coin features an upright baby rabbit in a Chinese paper-cutting pattern facing a lantern hanging from a branch. Two Chinese characters “Gui” and “Mao” printed to the right represent 2023 in the Gregorian-Lunar calendar. “The collection period [for the commemorative coins] was unfortunately hit by the Covid-19 outbreak in the country, with many people just too sick to even carry out normal activities,” said Kenny Ng Lai-yin, a strategist at Everbright Securities International. “And with many people incurring huge medical expenses recently, they may not be willing to invest in such unnecessary items.” A weakening economy and a pessimistic job and wage outlook have also likely weighed on the uptake of these commemorative coins, he added. Since President Xi Jinping abruptly changed course and abandoned the zero-Covid policy on December 8, the Omicron variant of the coronavirus has spread largely unmitigated across the country. China has recorded almost 60,000 Covid-related deaths between December 8 and January 12, according to official numbers. China’s economy grew by 2.9 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2022, bringing the full-year growth rate to 3 per cent, data released on January 17 showed, slightly better than the 2.3 per cent growth seen in 2020, which was the lowest since 1976. Demand for special gold and silver coins launched a bit earlier in December has also been muted compared with the previous year. The PBOC launched 13 coins, eight gold and five silver in 10 designs, with prices ranging from 540 yuan for a 15-gram silver coin set to 323,000 yuan for a 500-gram gold coin. One particular gold and silver coin set featuring a plum blossom design drew some 9,000 registrations for 800 sets in a PBOC lucky draw. A comparable set offered for the Year of the Tiger saw more than 20,000 registrations last year. Many of those who registered online were surprised that they got all the coins they had reserved, unlike in the past couple of years. “I tried to get three sets of tiger coins last year but only got one after the lucky draw, but this year I got all three rabbit coins that I wanted,” said Wang Jun, a 62-year-old retired teacher in Beijing and an avid coin and stamp collector. Wang said some of his friends did not join the lucky draw this year as they believe the best investment now is to hold on to cash. “I see it as a hobby instead of an investment,” Wang said. “It may not give me a good yield, but I just want to pass these nicely designed items to my daughter and her child one day.”