China’s poisoned air and suspect water have meant good business for Xu Feng. Most of Beijing’s long-suffering residents try to ignore the kind of choking smog levels that would send London into emergency mode, but those with more money, and enough education to know that their lives are in peril, bought indoor air purifiers from vendors such as Mr Xu, plus equipment to make tap water potable.
Over the past six months, though, sales have flagged. “My customers have less money to spend than before, so they wait much longer before replacing their old filters,” he said.
After decades of double-digit growth, the economic slowdown has hit multiple sectors, while the government’s anti-corruption campaign has curbed lavish spending to entertain China’s army of officials. Mr Xu’s woes multiplied after he contracted stock market fever this spring and sank £30,000 pounds into shares that soon tanked.
“The government,” he said, “has to do something. So many people have lost out, it must affect the wider economy, where people earn less and prices are rising.”
Such grumbles are widespread, but bright spots pinprick the gloom. At his shop on Beijing’s premier pedestrian street, Dominic Johnson-Hill, a British entrepreneur, anticipates a record year of sales for Plastered T-Shirts, his ten-year-old graphic design and clothing company.
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“The money is out there, people are spending, but many firms struggle to keep consumers on board,” he said. Fortunately, he operates in the creative sector. “Creative remains a very untapped industry here. China has innovated many new products, like fast trains and smartphones, but they’re not creating new markets.”
Even as China struggles to meet its 7 per cent GDP target for 2015, authorities may take some comfort in the rise of consumption, which is now responsible for 60 per cent of any GDP increase. And, Mr Johnson-Hill said, “growth of 6.8 per cent is still fantastic compared with the West”.