Retail sales boom in Asia
Milan (AsiaNews) – Asia is again the centre of the world economy and no longer one of its peripheries known only for its cheap labour.
Forecasters expect retail sales across Asia to continue their stellar growth to include non luxury items traditionally in high demand among local nouveaux riches.
According to the latest MasterIndex™ of Retail forecast, all 12 Asian markets included in the survey are predicted to see positive expansion, with Indonesia taking the lead with an anticipated 16.9%year-on-year growth for the first half of the year. Double-digit growth is also expected from China (12.75%) and Thailand (12.3%), followed by Malaysia (8.9%), Hong Kong (8.7%) and the Philippines (8.5%).
The MasterIndex of Retail’s forecast for the first half of 2005 period is shown in the table below.
Retail sales in the first half of 2005 Year-on-year growth per country
| Australia* | A$ 85 billion | 4.0% |
| China | 2.85 trillion yuan | 12.75% |
| Hong Kong* | HK$ 99 billion | 8.7% |
| Indonesia | 166 trillion rupiahs | 16.9% |
| Japan* | 56 trillion yen | 2.3% |
| South Korea* | 64 trillion won | 1.78% |
| Malaysia | 30 billion ringgit | 8.9% |
| New Zealand* | NZ$ 16.2 billion | 5.5% |
| Philippines | 331 billion peso | 8.5% |
| Singapore* | SG.3 billion | 6.5% |
| Taiwan* | NT,519 billion | 4.8% |
| Thailand* | 1059 billion baht | 12.3% |
By comparison, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development expects growth in retail sales in the Euro zone to range from 1.6 per cent to 2.4 per cent.
MasterIndex™ of Retail is a short-term forecast of retail sales growth provided by MasterCard International, the international credit card company.
Its analytical foundations are a set of techniques that have provided predictive market intelligence for more than ten years and demonstrated its predictive precision as an excellent barometer of the consumer pulse in this region.
According to Dr Yuwa Hedrick-Wong, economic advisor to MasterCard International for the Asia/Pacific region, “[t]he consumption revolution in Asia/Pacific continues to unfold in 2005, in spite of the tsunami disaster, the impact of higher world price of oil, and the regional trend of rising interest rates.”
Given the trend, Asia is becoming increasingly central to the world economy and can no longer be thought as the traditional low-wage, cheap goods exporter. Media coverage is an indicator of this shift.
Asia has made the front pages and leading TV and radio new items first for its high export-driven pace of growth, then for the unexpected impact of its raw material hungry manufacturing sector.
More importantly, Asia’s trade surplus coupled with high rates of saving among Asians have given Asian central banks and private financial institutions surplus capital that has been largely invested in foreign fixed rate bonds, especially US government bonds.
Paradoxically, savings from Asia’s low-wage economies have been financing government debt in one of the richest countries in the world: the US. This way penny-pinching Asians have been funding debt growth among US households and companies.
More recently, Asian financial institutions have been diversifying their holdings by buying Euro-bonds. For some analysts, this explains the slide of the US greenback vis-à-vis the Euro.
NB: Sales in countries with an * do not include hospitality, catering and auto sales.
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