Can Singles’ Day lift China’s economy?
Marketplace Morning Report
Marketplace
4.5 • 928 Ratings
🗓️ 11 November 2024
⏱️ 7 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
From the BBC World Service: China’s annual shopping bonanza offers attractive discounts to tempt shoppers to spend big, but will the price cutting work? Then, the latest COP international climate conference is getting underway and comes as projections suggest this year will be the hottest ever recorded. And later, facing population decline, Croatia’s government is trying to encourage people who’ve left the country to return home.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Can Singles Day give China the boost it needs? |
| 0:05.1 | Live from the BBC World Service, this is the Marketplace Morning Report. |
| 0:09.0 | I'm Luke Wilson in Fuliana Byrne. Good morning. |
| 0:12.2 | It's the biggest shopping day of the year in China today, |
| 0:15.4 | and businesses are looking for a much-needed increase in sales. |
| 0:19.6 | But in an economy that's seen a property market slump, |
| 0:22.6 | rising on employment and falling consumer spending since the pandemic, will people get out and spend? |
| 0:28.9 | Let's find out with our business correspondent in Singapore, Nick Marsh. Hi Nick. |
| 0:33.4 | Hi, Luke. So for people who don't know, what is Singles Day and how big a deal is it? |
| 0:38.6 | Well, if you are living outside of Asia and you haven't heard of it, basically you should think of it as China's Black Friday. |
| 0:45.9 | So lots of deals, bargains online, chopping, spending. It actually started not as a sales day. It started off as a bit of a joke among some uni students, like |
| 0:55.1 | an unofficial holiday for single people. As with all these occasions, it's a great excuse for people |
| 1:00.7 | to spend money. It's an even better excuse for businesses to cash in. And it has grown so much. |
| 1:07.1 | Last year, $150 billion were spent on singles date. And this year, it comes at a time when China needs to see some spending, doesn't it? |
| 1:17.0 | It does, it does. The economy has been stagnating for quite some time now. China actually sought deflation in its economy. Price is literally going down. A lot of it has to do with a big |
| 1:28.6 | crisis in the property market. The value of houses has gone down quite a lot. A lot of people's |
| 1:34.5 | money is tied up in property, which now seems like a bit of a liability. So you can understand |
| 1:42.1 | why people are hesitant to start spending. |
| 1:45.2 | And the government's trying to get to grips with this massive stimulus package announced |
| 1:50.7 | over the weekend. How have markets reacted to that? They've not reacted very well. Really, |
| 1:56.3 | when you dig into the details of what the Chinese government is calling a stimulus package, it's not what |
| 2:02.9 | many Western countries would consider that traditional cash injection. What it is, in reality, |
... |
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