Many investment partners today have their eyes on China. And for good reason. Consumer spending in China is predicted to come close to doubling by 2015 in the retail sector alone, according to a new report by the Chinese Academy of Social Science (CASS). And this comes on the back of spending that has already been increasing a great deal, as companies like ARC Investment Partners have noted.
From 2006 to 2010, retail spending saw an average growth rate of 18.1% each year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. It is Chinese women who are leading this wave of consumer spending and that are helping to secure the future economic growth in China.
As reported in a recent financial newsletter by Adam Roseman of ARC Investment Partners, 3000 women were recently surveyed in 12 Chinese cities by China Market Research Group to see what their spending habits are like. 85% of those surveyed said that they planned to spend more in the coming six months than they did in the previous six.
This key sector of the economic market in China has yet to be taped into by western brand managers – but women are not only influencing the household budgets in China. They are influencing the overall decision-making in the home and even in the homes of their parents. Forbes has actually reported, in a report last year, that half of the world’s 14 self-made billionaire women are Chinese. Raised in one-child families in China, millions of girls have been told that their parents’ futures’ rely on them; and they are fulfilling those expectations to ensure proper care for their retiring parents.