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China’s middle-income population passes 500 million mark, state-owned newspaper says
- The figure, which marks a rise of 100 million over five years, was released at a time when the authorities are looking to domestic consumption to boost growth
- Claim was published in the Economic Daily under a pen name linked to a Communist Party office as part of a series designed to boost confidence in the economy
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Mandy Zuoin Shanghai
China’s middle-income population has passed the 500 million mark, according to a commentary in a state-owned newspaper published on Sunday.
The country is currently trying to boost domestic consumption and the front-page article in Economic Daily – published under the byline Zhao Caiwen, a pen name linked to the Communist Party’s Central Financial and Economic Affairs Commission – said the buying power of this group, along with urbanisation and technological innovation, will be major forces driving China in the future.
It was published as part of a series billed as “how China is going to maintain relatively fast long-term growth” in an apparent effort to lift market confidence in the world’s second biggest economy amid faltering growth.
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In a reference to the American economist Walt Rostow’s stages of growth theory, the article said China is “in what Rostow calls a stage of high mass consumption, and the Chinese market has huge development potential and global appeal”.
The previous official estimate had put the total middle-income population at 400 million as of 2019, but the article did not provide a source for the 500 million figure and there is no official definition for what constitutes this group.
The authorities are counting on the spending power of China’s 1.4 billion people to drive economic growth following the property market crisis and a fall in external demand.
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