(Yicai Global) April 3 -- Eastern China's Hangzhou has issued an additional CNY150 million (USD21.2 million) in vouchers today to stimulate consumer demand while a giveaway sum more than 10 times as big is still ahead.

Consumers can try to collect one of the 1.5 million available sets of vouchers ranging from CNY20 to CNY45 (up to USD6.40) via Ant Financial Holding Services' mobile wallet Alipay, China News Service reported. The coupons are valid at designated stores.

Eastern China's Ningbo, Shaoxing, and Jiaxing have also given out consumer coupons but Hangzhou has been most lavish by promising on March 26 to issue CNY1.7 billion (USD239.8 million) in vouchers. From March 27 till yesterday, more than 94 percent of Hangzhou's first batch of CNY100 million in coupons had been used, driving consumption by CNY1.2 billion, according to data from the municipal commerce bureau.

The butterfly effect of the coupons will help rekindle consumer demand that has been suppressed by the Covid-19 outbreak, said Sun Hao, professor at Zhejiang Gongshang University's School of Economics.

In the three days ended March 29, supermarket chain Century Mart's sales in Hangzhou exceeded CNY60 million. "Coupons have boosted the sales of mid-to-high-end aquatic products and beef, and the turnover has increased significantly," said a store manager. 

Yonghui Superstores's single-day passenger flow exceeded 6,000 shoppers after the earlier coupon release, rising by 70 percent from a week earlier, said Jiang Yajing, head of the grocery chain's Hangzhou branch. The volume of Alipay transactions almost doubled on March 27 from the day before.

Editor: Emmi Laine