Bringing the Chinese Consumer to Life

There is good reason to believe that China’s recently completed Third Plenum will come to be regarded as a pivotal point in the country’s development. At long last, China’s senior leadership has endorsed a raft of reforms that could impel the economy’s shift from reliance on exports to consumption-led growth.

BEIJING – History will be the ultimate judge, but there is good reason to believe that China’s recently completed Third Plenum will come to be regarded as a pivotal moment in the country’s development. At long last, China’s senior leadership has endorsed a raft of reforms that could impel the economy’s shift from reliance on exports to consumption-led growth.

Until now, this transformation was framed in terms of broad goals and aspirations. For example, the 12th Five-Year Plan, adopted in March 2011, promised the emergence of a consumer-led economy, resting on the building blocks of urbanization and the development of an embryonic services sector. Notwithstanding the importance of these commitments in setting out opportunities for China’s middle class, they lacked a critical component: incentives for Chinese families to convert their newfound income into discretionary consumption.

On the contrary, financial and economic insecurity has gripped Chinese households since the “iron rice bowl” – the cradle-to-grave support that the socialist state offered workers and their families – was discarded in the late 1990’s. Fearing for the future, households have hoarded incremental income, rather than spending it on consumer goods. Economists call that precautionary saving. China’s leaders called it frustrating.

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