While mainland China faces its worst Covid-19 wave since the initial shock of the pandemic, a central bank survey shows many Chinese would rather save money than spend it. spend or invest.
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BEIJING – Chinese consumers are becoming more cautious compared to near the beginning of the pandemic, according to a survey of People’s Bank of China Wednesday release.
Instead of spending or investing their money, many Chinese want to save more in the first three months of 2022, results from the quarterly survey show.
Survey respondents who said they were more inclined to save in the first quarter rose to 54.7% – the highest level recorded since the third quarter of 2002, according to data accessed via Wind Information.
Over the past few weeks, the spread of the highly infectious omicron variant in major economic regions like Shenzhen and Shanghai have disrupted business and daily life with closures and quarantines.
As Covid-19 enters its third year, Carlos Casanova, senior economist for Asia at UBP, said Thursday on CNBC’s “Capital Connection.”
But he doesn’t expect those changes to happen until the second half of the year, Casanova said. His company is cutting its second-quarter China GDP forecast, he said, without giving specific numbers.
Although the central bank survey found that the percentage of respondents wanting to spend money in the first quarter fell to 23.7%, that was just the lowest level in a year, data accessed via Wind shows. An even lower 22% expressed interest in spending during the worst of the pandemic in the first quarter of 2020.
Education is the top area where Chinese consumers plan to increase spending over the next three months. The PBOC survey found that 28.9 percent expressed such intentions – up from 27.2 percent in the fourth quarter of last year.
And even though the struggle of China’s real estate industry, The survey said the percentage of respondents intending to buy a home remained the same in both quarters, at 17.9%.
Little interest in buying stocks
While there are plans to cut spending, Chinese consumers say they are also not inclined to invest their money.
According to Wind, the percentage of respondents wanting to invest fell to 21.6%, the lowest level recorded in the first quarter of 2009.
The desire to invest in stocks was the lowest of the three investment categories listed, and the percentage of respondents wanting to buy stocks fell to 16.2% in the first quarter – down from 17.3% in the previous quarter. , survey data shows.
The PBOC said its quarterly survey, conducted since 1999, included 20,000 people with bank deposits across 50 large, medium and small cities across the country.
