The future looks more challenging for business enterprises hoping to crack the Chinese masses. Having just managed to bridge the urbanization divide at 51.27% year end 2011, we now see a report by China’s Social Sciences Academic Press and Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. It finds that by 2020, businesses will need to be ‘present in 212 cities’ to cover 80% of the middle class. In 2005, the number was 60.
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Report: Chinese middle class to reach 40% of the population by 2020
By Allen Ai
Source – Shanghaiist, published February 10, 2012
China’s middle class is projected to reach 40% of the population in 2020, twice the proportion at the turn of the century, according to the International City Development Report released jointly by the Social Sciences Academic Press and Shanghai Academy of Social Science
According to the report, the next ten years will be a crucial transition period in China’s economic development. China’s urbanization rate was 47% in 2010, and by 2020, it is expected to reach 55%. During this period, some 150 million Chinese people will migrate from the farms to become city dwellers.
Last year, the GDP of Beijing and Shanghai grew 8% and 8.2% respectively. Both cities were, according to Tu Qiyu in Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, laggards in GDP growth compared to other major Chinese cities. This had to do with their high level of openness and internationalisation, he explained. Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: Beijing Consensus, Chinese Model, Domestic Growth, Economics, Environment, Finance, Influence, Infrastructure, Migrant Workers, Migration (Internal), Shanghaiist
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