China’s middle class to rise to more than third of population by 2030, research firm says
Consumer spending expected to reach level currently seen in European Union, according to Economist Intelligence Unit
Mainland China’s middle class will account for more than a third of its population by 2030, taking consumer spending to the level now seen in the European Union, an analytics company said.
About 35 per cent of the population will have in excess of US$10,000 of annual disposable income by then, up from about 10 per cent today, according to the report released on Wednesday by The Economist Intelligence Unit.
As development deepens, wealth will depend more on capital rather than labour
Private consumption, which includes both goods and services, as well as rent, is expected to grow by 5.5 per cent on average each year, faster than the expansion of the country’s gross domestic product, according to the report.
“We expect that the purchasing power of individual Chinese consumers in 2030 will be roughly akin to that of South Korea today or the US in 2000,” said Dan Wang, China analyst at the company.
Inequalities in wealth were expected to persist, although most of the high-income earners would likely emerge in interior provincial capitals such as Chongqing, Xian and Changsha, it said. Traditionally, the coastal provinces have been the wealthiest.