Edited and translated by Liang Jun, People's Daily Online
Chinese consumers spent about 46 billion U.S. dollars on luxury goods in 2012, with 27.1 billion U.S. dollars spent abroad and 18.9 billion U.S. dollars at home, according to data released by U.S. investment banking firm Goldman Sachs recently.
Goldman Sachs said in his latest report that the Asian economy (except Japan) will usher in a full recovery in 2013 and the growth rate will reach 6.9 percent. It also predicted that China's economic grwoth will amount to 8.1 percent, which will further help the sale of luxury goods and total consumption of luxury goods in China is expected to top 30 billion U.S. dollars in 2015.
Over the past year, European consumer index declined due to the debt crisis and U.S. economic recovery faltered while China saw a strong economic growth, said Meng Penjun, CEO of Luxuries (Asia) Holding Corporation China Market. Chinese consumers swarmed to luxury stores in Paris and London during China's holidays.
Hangzhou, capital city of eastern China's Zhejiang province, boasts 80 percent of world's luxury brands. In 2012, sales revenue of luxury goods and clothing in Hangzhou Tower stood at 1.1 billion yuan, seeing a slowing increase.
Meng said the high luxury tax forces Chinese mainlanders to go to Hong Kong or Europe to consume, which, to some extent, had impacted the retail industry of the mainland.
Relative departments are considering luxury tax cutting although it is still controversial.
In Hong Kong, a large proportion of tourism consumption is from luxury spending. As China's fashion and shopping center, the city's retail industry will get a blow once it loses price advantage, said Meng Pengjun.
Meng also thinks lowering luxury tax or setting up special zone for luxury goods will attract consumers to spend domestically.
Read the Chinese version: 2012年中国奢侈品消费460亿美元 减税计划存争议
Source: Chinanews.com; Author: Xia Yi
Extinction of river dolphin: What does it mean for the Yangtze River?
Feedback
RSS
