Consumerism hasn't caught on yet in China
BEIJING -- Wang Zhibo runs a successful business, has plenty of money in the bank and would love to buy a house and trade in his humble second-hand car for a $14,600 Volkswagen Santana 3000.
Just what the crumbling world economy needs — a guy with money to spare and an appetite for houses and cars.
But Wang, 33, won't be coming to the rescue, at least not anytime soon.
The Beijing entrepreneur is hoarding cash until he sees how the Chinese economy weathers the storm. "This year, I wanted to buy a house and a better car, but I won't do it soon because of the economic crisis," he says. "I still must save rather than spend."
Wang's cautious attitude is typical — and a key reason China's 1.3 billion consumers are unlikely to dip into their vast savings and go on a shopping spree that would recharge sputtering factories in their own country and around the world.
Shanghai-based research firm Data Driven Marketing Asia (DDMA) last month surveyed 602 consumers in five Chinese cities. The findings, released last week, were sobering for anyone holding out hope for a Chinese consumption boom: 45% were reducing their spending because of their concerns about the economy; 12% said they'd already lost their jobs.
No one can spend like Americans
The idea that Chinese can pick up the slack now that American shopaholics have gone on the wagon is "rubbish when you look at it," DDMA director Sam Mulligan says. "The Chinese have never been huge consumers of imported products. ... It's crazy to think they're going to switch and start consuming. We're living in La La Land" if we expect them to.
"We can't get them to replicate Americans," agrees Paul French, the British marketing director of research firm Access Asia. "Americans are just so good at consumerism, like obesity and greenhouse gas emissions. Although the rest of us try, it is very hard to compete."
While the USA binged on sport-utility vehicles and McMansions over the past decade, China cranked out exports and saved and saved and saved, accumulating a staggering $2 trillion in foreign exchange reserves.
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