The end of the year is the peak season for beef consumption for residents in Lhasa, capital city of southwest China's Tibet.

All the vendors are prepared waiting for the arrival of the beef sales high season.

Aunt Ma, who runs a frozen beef business near the mosque on the southern section of Lingkor East Road, has a radiant smile. Every customer that comes to her shop will be welcomed with her warm greeting.

There is a large refrigerator in Aunt Ma's store that is used to store goods. She said that most of her frozen beef is yellow cattle beef at retail and wholesale. Every day she sells five hundreds or one thousand kg, and according to different beef quality and part, the price is roughly 32 yuan (4.8 US dollars) per kilo, but meat prices will fluctuate a little every day.

Boss Ma from the opposite store is currently cleaning his store.

Boss Ma has a factory and can do anything from raising to slaughtering animals.

Boss Ma said that the price of the fresh meat he sells in his store is roughly 60 yuan (9.1 US dollars) per kg, specifically the front leg is70 yuan (10.6 US dollars) per kg, back leg 76 yuan (11.5 US dollars) per kg and steak is priced at around 60 yuan (9.1 US dollars) per kg.

 "At present, beef sales volumes have already started to pick up," said Boss Ma. "We have more wholesale in our shop. On average, we can sell seven or eight cows per day, and a dozen on a good day."

Next door Boss Gao is chopping lamb chops for his customers from the fresh lamb hanging on his shop door.

"The winter has arrived and everyone loves to eat mutton; eating a pot of hot mutton and lamb soup gets you through the colder weather," said Boss Gao.

"Now I can sell four or five sheep every day. Basically, the price of sheep from Shannan ranges from 60 to 66 yuan (9.1 to 10 US dollars) per kg, with lamb chops being slightly more expensive."

Editor: Ana Wu