Hangzhou leads China in consumption

Hangzhou, capital city of Zhejiang province, took the crown on per capita consumption expenditure among Chinese cities in 2022, showing strong consumption ability, ThePaper reported on Friday.

According to official data, the average consumption spending in Hangzhou was 46,440 yuan ($6772.64) last year, surpassing Shanghai's 46,045 yuan and Shenzhen's 44,793 yuan.

Consumption is an important index to measure regional development level. Residents' consumption ability is closely related to per capita income, per capita savings and per capita GDP.

The city's robust consumption performance relies on strengthening consumption base and improving economic fundamentals, said the news website.

According to the Hangzhou Municipal Bureau of Commerce, a total of 361 "first stores" opened in China last year, of which 53 were in Hangzhou, ranking second nationwide.

At the beginning of this year, the topic of "residents in Zhejiang spend 1.8 billion yuan a year to buy Chanel" was hot on Weibo, which reflects the strong consumption power of Zhejiang and Hangzhou.

According to Hangzhou's official plan, the city wants to be an international consumption center city, with the total retail sales of consumer goods to breakthrough 800 billion yuan, with an average annual growth of over 8 percent, as well as the online retail sales to exceed 1 trillion yuan, with an annual growth of over 10 percent by 2023.

The data, excluding Guangzhou due to the statistical caliber, is divided into per capita consumption expenditure of urban residents (46,825 yuan) and per capita consumption expenditure of rural area residents (26,230 yuan).