Traditional calendar days are numbered

People examine calenders at a wholesale calendar market in Guangzhou, Guangdong province. [Photo Provided to China Daily]

Many have already left the industry made outdated by smartphones and the anti-corruption campaign.

December has traditionally been the busiest month for tenants of Hecheng, the biggest calendar-wholesale market in Guangdong province's capital Guangzhou-but not this year.

Trucks should have been coming and going, delivering stacks of calendars from printers to stores and then to buyers across the country. Salespeople should have been busy checking and repacking to ensure calendars were sent to clients before 2015.

But about two-thirds of the more than 60 stores were shut down when China Daily visited in mid-December.

The remaining stores were quiet. Most shop assistants blankly gazed at computer screens.

Faded banners drooped from the market's walls and swayed in the frigid winds.

They signaled this winter's chill of China's printed-calendar industry.

The cold front that has frozen the industry is the top anti-graft body's ban on government spending on New Year gifts, such as calendars, greeting cards, and postcards.

The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China announced the ban on Oct 31, 2013.

It prohibits Party and government bodies, State-owned enterprises, and public and financial institutions from using public funds to purchase, print, or mail calendars, New Year cards and postcards as presents with public funds.

The ban is intended to stop the formalistic and extravagant custom of making paper calendars into luxurious gifts, as had been common practice.

The ban has proven effective.

All relevant organizations canceled their orders for calendars immediately after the announcement.

Yet government-supported bodies were their chief clients.

Calendar producers were caught off guard and suffered vast losses. Most of the ordered calendars would have been printed by the following month.

Many people left the industry the following year, Guangdong Printing Association secretary-general Kong Huanji said.

"The central policy blocked the orders from State-owned enterprises, which used to be a huge buyer," Kong told China Daily.

"Those who remain must take smaller orders from private enterprises. Profits are meager."

The owner of Guangzhou Chaoyi Calendar Co Ltd's shop in the Hecheng wholesale market said she will close her store after a clearance sale.

"Banks and China Mobile canceled all their orders after the ban," she said.

"Rent and production are expensive. I can't make ends meet. I won't shift to retail because startup costs are too high."

Hecheng market tenant Guangzhou Nianming Calendar&Gifts Co Ltd has managed to survive on orders from private enterprises and advertisers.

"Orders of 2,000 to 6,000 used to be our priority. We didn't have time to deal with smaller orders," said a salesperson and designer, who only gave her surname, Chen.

"But we now take small orders because the market collapsed. We won't close our company but will move to a smaller store near Hecheng's market. We can't afford the 100,000 yuan ($16,126) annual rent here."

Only two of about 40 stores were closed at another calendar-wholesale market four subway stops away.

But most have shifted to retail, shop owner Zhang Xiaolin said.

"Our orders now are only 100-plus each," she said.

"Profits can't cover rent. Wages are high. I may also close down this year."

Guangzhou Daily reports the two markets will become green spaces for Baiyun district's future Baiyun New Town central business district.

"Specialized markets' administrative costs are high, while calendar stores contribute little to the district's tax revenue. Changing the land use following the calendar industry's changes meets the demand for transforming the land and upgrading the district's economy," Guangzhou Daily quoted the economics department of Baiyun district's Sanyuanli subdistrict office as saying.