THE country's pawnbrokers have been doing a roaring trade since the Chinese Lunar New Year, as customers turn their unwanted gifts into cash.

"Our business has doubled since the New Year,"said Song Guoping, a pawnshop manager in Harbin, capital of the northeastern Heilongjiang Province.

In Beijing, pawnshops saw their custom increase by more than 40 percent after the week-long holiday.

Chinese visit relatives and friends during the New Year holiday, and exchange gifts, which were traditionally food and fruit, but now items such as mobile phones, digital cameras and jewelry are becoming popular.

People are more willing to purge their gift collections through pawnshops as it is more profitable than selling the items as second-hand, said a pawnshop worker in Beijing on Saturday.

Pawnbroking flourished in China last year as people hocked their belongings for cash to spend in the country's booming equity market, which surged 130 percent after a five-year slump.

The industry's turnover rose 40 percent to 96 billion yuan (US$12.3 billion) last year, according to the Ministry of Commerce.

Pawnshops appeared in China 1,700 years ago, but disappeared after the founding of New China in 1949. The first modern pawnshop opened in Chengdu, capital of Southwest China's Sichuan Province, in 1987.

The country had 2,494 pawnshops at the end of last year, with registered capital totaling 24.6 billion yuan.

Editor: Wing