Asian consumer confidence collapses
Chinese consumers are closing their wallets as any belief that the Far East could survive a recession in Europe and North America has effectively disappeared, according to a new survey released Monday.
DDMA Chinese Consumer Sentiment Index indicated that 45 per cent of consumers in that country cut their spending in February, up from 38 per cent in January.
China's shoppers are now worried about their economic prospects as slumping North American orders for Chinese manufactured goods is getting translated into a higher jobless rate, said DDMA, a regional marketing and business consultancy that regularly tracks consumer sentiment in the world's most populous nation.
Chinese reticence
"The Chinese consumer remains very cautious in February," said DDMA's director Sam Mulligan.
The World Bank has pegged China's growth rate for its gross domestic product at 6.7 per cent in 2009 — down from past years but well in excess of the GDP shrinkage expected in Canada, the United States and a number of other industrialized countries.
DDMA's survey found that 85 per cent of Chinese urban dwellers were worried about the economy, although, interestingly, only 26 per cent were concerned about their own jobs.
Other countries
The DDMA survey only polled people living in five major cities in China, but these findings dovetailed with results from other Asian countries in recent months.
A March survey of more than 1,000 New Zealanders found that 63 per cent believe the economy in that island nation will worsen over the next 12 months.
New Zealand's consumer confidence index had already tumbled in February to its lowest point in seven months, slipping to 95.9.
| Economic growth 2009 | GDP (%) | |
| China | 6.7 | |
| India | 5.1 | |
| Australia | -0.2 | |
| Japan | -2.6 | |
| Source: IMF | ||
In Australia, nearly 60 per cent of respondents to a recent poll said that economy will continue sputtering for another year.
Even in India, whose GDP the IMF predicts will grow by more than five per cent in 2009, economic sentiment has turned decidedly bearish.
A February poll, conducted by CNBC-TV18 and Boston Analytics, discovered that consumer confidence had tumbled to 77.6, the lowest level since the survey began in January 2008.
"What is particularly disheartening in the February reading of consumer confidence is the fact that there is a drop in confidence in both current and future expectations of economic conditions," said Sam Thomas, Boston Analytics’ director of research and development, in a statement.
The poll measured a three per cent drop in future expectations among respondents, pegging that portion of the overall index at 77.8.
In Japan, consumer confidence in January slumped to an all-time low at 26.4 as measured by the government's official consumer sentiment gauge.