Creating the World’s Largest Market

Boosted by the new middle-class, consumption in China will account for a quarter of the world total by 2025, more than all of the other BRIC (India, Brazil, Russia) countries put together. The forecast comes from McKinsey & Co.’s 2012 report on consumption in China, which has been published since 2005. According to the consultancy firm, over the text 20 years consumption will grow in the People’s Republic by 6.2 trillion dollars (4.6 trillion euros) of a 26 trillion world total. Analysts from the company confirm that the market increase will above all be on account of the expanding middle-class whose income levels are ever closer to their western counterparts. The same thing can be said of the type of consumption, with great interest towards goods such as quality food products. Given that the cost of living in China is much lower, the threshold for passing to the middle-class is fixed at annual earnings of 10 thousand dollars, and the new rich are set to continually rise. It has been calculated that the number of Chinese earning between 17 thousand and 35 thousand dollars per year grew by 6% in 2010, a figure which will have leapt to 51% in 2020.