At The Los Angeles Times, Barbara Demick explains the surging consumption of luxury goods by China’s wealthy—illustrated by their world-leading purchases of Rolls Royces and Lamborghinis—and the political inconvenience it presents.
Chinese fashionistas are displacing those immaculate Japanese women in their Burberry scarves as the world’s leading consumers of luxury goods. The consulting firm McKinsey & Co. projected that China will bump Japan out of first place by 2015 as the leading market for pricey goods. Even with the softening of China’s real estate market, the source of much new money, some analysts believe the Chinese already top the luxury market ….
Chinese officialdom has something of a love-hate relationship with luxury goods, officials relishing their own creature comforts while deploring anyone else doing it too flagrantly. China still has 150 million people living on less than $1 a day. And it maintains some of the highest taxes in the world on luxury goods, adding as much as 60% to the cost — which is why rich Chinese have become such prodigious shoppers abroad.
The word shechi, or “luxury,” is banned in advertising and company names, said Ouyang Kun, who runs a trade group in Beijing called the World Luxury Assn. “The government feels luxury items are only affordable for a few people. They don’t want to create unharmonious feelings among the people,” he explained.
Among the baubles on display is a $314,000 wedding cake, of which Bill Bishop has posted photos at Sinocism. See also more on luxury goods in China via CDT.
