If you thought Black Friday and Cyber Monday were the peak of overhyped sales frenzy – you ain’t seen nothing yet! China’s Singles Day – an even more hyped up event from China’s online giant, Alibaba, sees even more conspicuous demand than Black Friday and Cyber Monday rolled together – and all in one day.
The event falls on the 11th day of the 11th month and this year saw sales hit an almost unbelievable US$14.3 billion – up from just over $9 billion a year earlier.
For a country the media tells us is in recession and struggling with its domestic economy – a factor blamed for many of theWest’s current ills, and for the resource sector’s poor performance in particular – this has to be a truly remarkable figure and suggests that whatever may be afflicting the country’s manufacturing and exports sector, domestic demand is running higher than it has ever been – and substantially so.
Do read a couple of my articles published recently on Seeking Alpha about what the Chinese administration is trying to do in terms of a complete reboot of the nation’s economy. It is turning it from a manufacturing and export driven economy to a consumer and services society, and some sectors, both inside and outside the Middle Kingdom, are indeed feeling the pain.
The articles are : The Real Facts Behind China’s Economic Restructuring and China’s Singles Day Sales Eclipse Black Friday and Cyber Monday Combined (Click on the article titles to read).
Such a transition cannot be made without cracking a few eggs, but the latest Singles Day sales figures suggest that the country may already be almost there!
For the rest of this column, click here: http://lawrieongold.com/2015/11/12/china-domestic-demand-could-be-driver-to-new-commodities-supercycle/