Chinanews, Beijing, Mar. 26 – A recent survey about Chinese consumer market condition shows that in 2006, Chinese people's income growth rate fell behind the national GDP growth rate, profit growth rate of state-owned enterprises, and the increasing rate of government taxation. Only young people's income growth rate can catch up with the country's economic development, the Bejing Youth Daily reported.
In order to conduct the survey, Credit Suisse, a well-known international financial institution, investigated 2,700 residents from the cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Shenyang, Wuhan, Chengdu and Xi'an, whose income level falls into different categories. The report was released last Sunday. This is the third consecutive year that Credit Suisse followed Chinese people's income situation.
Based on the survey result, Chinese people's average income in 2006 (after tax was deducted) was 5,043 yuan, slightly lower than the previous year when the related figure was 5,081 yuan. Shenzhen people's family income reached 7,554 yuan, the highest among all the eight Chinese cities. People’s family income in Beijing was 5,528 yuan, lower than that of Shanghai (5,816 yuan) and higher than that of Guangzhou (5,383 yuan).
The investigation also shows that Chinese people favor foreign-branded cars. However, in choosing cosmetic products, they tend to buy domestic ones. In terms of food, Chinese people care more about food safety than the price of food. Apart from Shanghai, most Chinese people think that housing price will continue to rise in future.
While Chinese economy grew rapidly in 2006, Chinese people's planned expenditure and their actual expenditure both dropped compared with the previous year (expenditure on housing was excluded). The apparent contradictory phenomenon might be attributable to two factors: first, consumers expected the price of most commodities, such as cars and electronic goods, would further drop; at the same time, people's income would increase rather slowly, said Cheng Changhua, Credit Suisse research department manager in China.
