A Surge in China’s Consumer Spending on the Horizon?
After easing China’s COVID restrictions and a wave of COVID moved through its residents, Chinese consumers are quickly returning, reports Polly Zhao, U.S. Meat Export Federation China director.
“It's not only the food service, it's all the related sectors like hotel and accommodations, passenger logistics, transportations and retailers, and movies. They're all coming back, so these are all good signs,” Zhao says.
Similar to the surge in U.S. consumer spending post-COVID, USMEF’s Joel Haggard, senior vice president of Asia Pacific, notes that China’s consumers are returning with significant spending power.
“We're starting this year on a really positive footing because you have this economy that's going to bounce back. The Chinese government is going to stimulate the economy to bring back that GDP level, and the consumers are going to be out wanting to spend,” Haggard explains.
Haggard adds accumulated savings grew by a few trillion dollars last year for China’s residents, and they’re going to want to spend that money. While February seems to still be early in the rebound phase, Haggard says everyone is expecting a full return to normalcy in the second quarter of 2023.
As consumers make a comeback in China, Jihae Yang, USMEF Asia Pacific vice president, notes the importance of understanding how products flow into the market while keeping the consumer in mind.
“We don't know the exact the channel that U.S. product is flowing in to the end users in China market. So, my strategy in China is to map out how the flow of the product flows from the exporters, to the importers, to the distributors, to the end users. Eventually, then try to understand the flow and the distribution channel, and then identify the needs of the individual segments that we can address,” Yang explains.
