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June 8 – China's government will study measures to expand a value-added tax trial and improve consumption tax to stimulate spending, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing Finance Minister Xie Xuren. Under the program, companies in certain parts of the service sector will shift from paying business tax, levied on total revenue, to a value-added tax, which will lower their overall tax burden. China currently sets a special consumption tax on certain goods including automobiles, liquor, cigarettes and luxury items. It also imposes a consumption tax on fuel including gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.
June 7 – China's top 10 retailers saw their revenue grow 16.8% year on year in April, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said. The growth rate was 4.86 percentage points faster than a month earlier but 11.44 percentage points slower than a year earlier.
June 6 – Ikea opened its 11th Chinese store in Wuxi, Jiangsu province. The 49,117m2 mall is the Swedish home improvement product retailer's second largest in the country.
June 6 – The Chinese government's incentives for farmers to replace home appliances spurred sales of 30.11 million items valued at ¥79.88 billion between January and May, down 5.7% and up 4.4% year on year respectively, the Ministry of Commerce said.
June 6 – Metro AG said it plans to open 54 stores in China in the next three years after opening just four in the country last year. The German retailer started doing business in China in 1995 and had 54 stores there as of the end of 2011.
June 5 – China's oil consumption totaled 27.65 million tons in 2011, including 25.15 million tons of edible oil and 2.5 million tons of industrial oil, according to the Chinese Cereals and Oils Association. The total amount was translated into 20.5kg per person.
June 4 – Sales of tablet computers in China are expected to hit 40 million units in 2012, more than double last year's 14 million, according to Hqew.net, an electronics consultancy based in Shenzhen.
June 4 – Chinese consumers, including those in Taiwan and Hong Kong, spent ¥42.6 billion on Swiss watches in 2011, accounting for 31.6% of the European country's total watch exports, according to the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry.
June 1 – Lotte Mart said it plans to open 50 stores in the three provinces in northeastern China in the next five years. The South Korean retailer currently operates 95 stores in China.
June 1 – Marks & Spencer said it will open eight stores in China in the next 12 months, most of them in Shanghai and cities in Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces. The British retailer currently operates eight stores in the country, five in Shanghai, and one in Ningbo, Changzhou and Wuhan each.
June 1 – French retailer Carrefour SA opened its 207th China store in Shanghai. The 6,773m2 location has 34 checkouts and 400 parking bays.
June 1 – Lawson Inc, Japan's second largest convenience store chain, opened its 50th store in Chongqing, a provincial level city with 32 million residents.
June 1 – After long catering to China's richest shoppers, Giorgio Armani SpA is looking to the country's middle class and plans to open 80 to 100 stores in the next three years, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Italian company currently operates 289 stores in China and is pushing further into its smaller cities, said Fabio Mancone, director of licensing and communications.
June 1 – China's first non-airport duty-free shops in Haikou and Sanya, Hainan province, have sold 3.25 million items valued at over ¥2 billion since opening 13 months ago, Hainan Customs said.
May 29 – China's retail sales are expected to exceed $5 trillion by the end of 2015, becoming the world's largest market, according to commerce minister Chen Deming.
May 27 – Graff Diamonds Corp, a London-based jeweler, plans to open 11 new stores in Asia, including eight in China, in the next two years, Bloomberg reported. Demand for high-end diamonds will grow in China and other Asian countries as the "super rich" increase, CEO Francois Graff said.
May 17 – China's contribution to the world's spending on luxury goods is will climb to 40% in the next 10 to 15 years, by which time contributions from its second tier cities will exceed the current spending of Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, according to Roland Berger. At present, China is responsible for $11.45 billion out of a $165.33 billion global market. An additional $63.59 billion will be generated in the global market in the next 10 to 15 years, and China will contribute $25.44 billion to that amount, Roland Berger added.
May 17 – China will lead the world in online retail sales in two years - by which time it will have surpassed both Japan and the US - according to a report released by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Chinese online shopping receipts rose 67.8% to ¥750 billion, to account for 4.3% of total retail sales, last year.
May 15 – Imports are expected to account for half of the revenues from China's wine market in three to five years, up from 30% now, experts say. France, Australia and Spain are the top three sources of imported wine for China. The nation's spending on wine totaled ¥45 billion in 2011, making it the world's fifth largest market.
May 15 – Sephora, a cosmetics retailer operated by France's LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA, said it plans to open 28 stores in second and third tier Chinese cities as the markets are already saturated in the largest cities.
May 14 – China's retail sales are expected to grow 17% annually to ¥32 trillion by 2015, the China Chain Store & Franchise Association predicted.
May 11 – China's retail sales rose 14.1% year on year to ¥1.56 trillion in April and rose 14.7% to ¥6.49 trillion in the first four months of 2012, the National Bureau of Statistics said.
May 11 – China's consumer price index rose 3.4% in April from a year ago, continuing to ease from 3.6% in March, the National Bureau of Statistics said. It was the third consecutive month that the inflation rose below the government's 4% target. Food prices, which make up one-third of the index basket, were up 7% in April.
May 8 – As many as 86% of Chinese consumers would not buy luxury goods labeled "Made in China" as they did not consider such goods to be luxurious, according to a joint survey by luxury goods magazines. China's share of the world's spending on luxury goods has risen from less than 1% in 1998 to 10% in 2010 and is expected to maintain a rapid pace in the next five years.
May 8 – German fashion and style company Hugo Boss AG said it will open most of this year's planned 50 global new outlets in China, particularly in smaller cities.
May 7 – Metro AG launched its B2B site in China and said it plans to double the number of its stores in the country by 2015. The German retailer currently operates 54 stores in China. Its revenue from China grew 18% to ¥15 billion last year.
May 7 – China's top 100 domestic and foreign supermarket operators posted a combined ¥770.66 billion in revenues in 2011, according to the China Chain Store & Franchise Association.
May 7 – China's top 100 domestic and foreign chain and franchise operators posted a combined ¥1.65 trillion in revenues in 2011, according to the China Chain Store & Franchise Association.
May 7 – The government's subsidies for farmers to substitute new home appliances have resulted in sales of 23.34 million items valued at ¥61.68 billion in the first four months of 2012, down 16.4% and 6.7% respectively from the same period a year ago, the Ministry of Commerce said.
May 4 – Lawson Inc, Japan's second largest convenience store chain, said it plans to open 100 stores annually in the years to come in Chongqing, a provincial level municipality with 32 million people in southwestern China.
April 26 – Turnover at China's deal–of–the–day sites surged 234.1% year on year to ¥4.51 billion in Q1 2012, according to Tuan800.com, a site that collects information about group–buy deals.
$1 = ¥6.33
@2011 China Economy @ The China Perspective.
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