China's high-end catering industry sees negative growth

China's high-end catering and food industries were hit hard in 2013 amid the country's anti-corruption and austerity campaigns, statistics showed. Revenue of the high-end catering sector reached 818.1 billion yuan (about 131.6 billion U.S. dollars), down 1.8 percent year on year, marking the first negative growth since China began to collect such data in 1991. Wang Yao, director of the All-China Commercial Information Center, said at a press conference on Wednesday that the growth rate was down 14.7 percentage points last year from 2012. High-end catering businesses are defined by the National Bureau of Statistics as those with annual sales exceeding 2 million yuan. Revenue of dining businesses with annual sales less than 2 million yuan increased by 15 percent last year compared with that in 2012. Meanwhile, sales of luxury liquor and high-end health care products, also declined sharply last year, Wang said. Since Xi Jinping took the helm of the CPC in November 2012, the Party has announced a series of detailed regulations to uproot bureaucratic and extravagant work styles among government workers, such as requiring officials to travel with smaller entourages, simplifying receptions and practising frugality.