Urbanisation will drive China's
growth
WARC, 19 March 2014
BEIJING: Consumer spending in
China will be given a boost by further urbanisation according to a leading
official, as a new government plan anticipates 60% of the population will live
in urban areas within the next six years.
Although retail sales had slowed
during the first two months of 2014, Zhao Ping, deputy director of the
Consumption Economy Research Department of Chinese Academy of International
Trade and Economic Cooperation, did not expect the rest of the year would
follow the same pattern.
And he thought there was
significant potential for growth as more people moved to towns and cities.
"Expansion of consumption
brought by urbanisation may not account for a large proportion, but the
increment will be substantial," he told Xinhua, adding that the resulting
household spending would be a "hotspot" for the consumer market, with
a boom in sales of building materials, furniture, home appliances, food and
beverages and mobile phones.
The recently unveiled national
plan foresees the proportion of permanent urban residents rising from 53.7% of
the population in 2013 to 60% by 2020, with green production and consumption
becoming the norm in the urban economy.
According to the report, China
will "focus on three tasks, each concerning 100 million people: granting
urban residency to around 100 million rural people who have moved to cities,
rebuilding rundown city areas and villages inside cities where around 100
million people live, and guiding the urbanisation of around 100 million rural
residents of the central and western regions in cities there".
A separate survey by China
International Capital Corporation, the country's largest investment bank, found
that rural Chinese were optimistic about their income growth, and highlighted
spending on houses, cars and tourism as their top three priorities.
Data sourced from Xinhua;
additional content by Warc staff
No comments:
Post a Comment