Growing number of Chinese have yen to spend in Japan
- By Cai Hong
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E-mail China Daily, July 6, 2015
There is no doubt, Japan's languishing economy is getting a boost from the large influx of Chinese travelers. As Japan's population ages and declines, the world's No 3 economy is becoming increasingly dependent on the consumer spending by those who live outside the country. And Tokyo knows it. Abe wants to make tourism one of the main engines driving Japan's economic growth by opening more duty-free shops and expediting immigration and customs procedures.
The number of Japanese travelers increased sharply from 4 million in the mid-1980s to 16 million in 1990s, when the Japanese economy grew rapidly: Its per capita GDP increasing from $10,000 to $35,000.
The same thing is happening in China, but at a faster rate.
Thanks to years of rapid growth, China had 4 million millionaire households in 2014, the second-largest number in the world after the United States, according to the US-based research from Boston Consulting Group. The China Rich List 2015 compiled by the US business magazine Forbes shows that China accounts for a record 20 percent of all billionaires in the world, up from 17.6 percent in 2014. The magazine's April report said China's mainland was estimated to have a record 400 billionaires and billionaire families thanks to "a rally in stock prices".
In 2014 alone, Chinese visitors spent $164 billion abroad, making them the world's biggest vacation spenders.
More Chinese tourists are expected to swarm into Japan. China, Japan and South Korea held talks on April 12 to boost the three countries' tourism, aiming to increase the visitor numbers among them to up to 30 million in 2020, from about 20 million in 2014.
Chinese travelers' shopping sprees in Japan should remind China's producers to work hard to produce quality goods, and remind Abe that another downturn in relations would make some Chinese tourists think again about their holiday destination.
The author is China Daily's Tokyo bureau chief.
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