Measured in terms of GDP, China is now the fourth largest economy in the world, and since 2000, its contribution to global GDP growth (in purchasing power parity terms) has been larger than that of the US and more than half as big again as the combined contribution of the three next-largest emerging economies (India, Brazil and Russia). Indeed, all the signs point to the US now viewing China as the major threat to its economic and military hegemony: According to the US National Intelligence Council’s November 2005 global outlook, entitled Mapping the Global Future, "In the same way that commentators refer to the 1900s as the 'American Century,' the 21st century may be seen as a time when Asia, led by China and India, comes into its own."
Market reform has unleashed the potential of China’s labour force into export-oriented manufacturing industries, creating an emerging middle class eager for levels of consumption comparable to their Western counterparts. However, it has also created socials tensions as farmers are pushed off their land by development and millions of older workers are deprived of their jobs by reforms to State Owned Enterprises.
ODS maintains that China may shortly reach a milestone in its economic development where the main engine of growth moves from being exports to Western markets to its own domestic markets and that the emergence of China as a consumer society will have profound global implications.
Zhejiang is of particular importance because not only it is at the leading edge of China’s development, its economy is more oriented towards the domestic market than some of its peers, making it ideally positioned to exploit this shift.
Drawing on data gathered from China’s National Bureau of Statistics and supplemented by the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Report and other sources, the aim of this report is to provide a detailed explanation of current trends in the province of Zhejiang, China’s fourth largest provincial economy, from two perspectives: domestic consumption trends and the market opportunities they are likely to provide and the export-oriented economic sector, especially its potential as a recipient of foreign capital.
As well as covering such topics as GDP, incomes, trade, consumption patterns, foreign investment, transport and telecommunications infrastructure, government, administration and the labour market, the report also provides a considerable body of socio-economic research on such topics as social insurance, healthcare and education as ODS believes that trends in these areas are crucial to understanding likely future outcomes in Zhejiang and China as a whole.
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