“Ordinary people in China do not have the appetite to consume and above all good reasons to save, because they have to rely on themselves to guarantee their future,” says Chan Kung. STRINGER/Imaginechina via AFP
SURVEY – Despite the end of the confinements, the rebound in consumption is limited. Worried, households are saving.
Correspondent in Asia
The colorful crowd is once again swarming in front of the gleaming windows of Nanjing Xi Lu, the posh section of Shanghai’s most famous shopping street, where luxury windows are scattered under the plane trees. “I found China!”, exclaims, relieved, Sandrine Zerbib, a long-time expatriate, back in “her” adopted city at the time of the post-Covid reopening of the country. Along the Bund, which borders the Huangpu River, shops and restaurants are full to bursting, a year after the brutal confinement imposed by Beijing. Crowds line up to once again taste the pleasure of a steaming xiaolongbao (steamed dumplings) swallowed on the spot. The 3.5% rebound in retail sales during the first two months of the year, a first since September, confirms the awakening of the giant, after the abrupt lifting of health restrictions in December, and the dazzling winter epidemic wave.
But “there is a Canada Dry effect” warns, on his LinkedIn page…
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