China's shoppers stock up on cards

SHENZHEN (Asia Times) - Chinese consumers, until now recognized as among the world's most determined savers, are adding credit cards to their wallets in record numbers, with the number of such cards in circulation almost doubled in the first quarter from a year earlier.

The number of credit cards in circulation jumped 93% in the year ending March 31 to 104.7 million, the People's Bank of China said on its website recently. The total number of bank cards, including debit cards, topped 1.58 billion by March 31, up 29.1% over the year, the bank said.

And this new availability of credit is happening at the same time Chinese consumers have more to spend. In fact, urban disposable incomes rose 11.5% in the first quarter from a year earlier.

China sees brisk gold investment

BEIJING (Reuters) – Ordinary Chinese citizens are investing more actively in gold as an alternative hedge against decade-high inflation, a senior gold industry executive said.

Physical trading at the Shanghai Gold Exchange rose 187 percent in the first half of the year, which will spur China to import more of the safe-heaven metal this year, Shen Xiangrong, the exchange’s chairman, told a gold conference in Beijing.

Gold buying suffered in some countries, including India, the largest consumer, when bullion prices hit a record high in March. But demand in China held firm, with a 15 percent increase in purchases of gold for jewellery and investment in the first quarter of 2008, according to the World Gold Council.

Chinese buying of physical gold for investment purposes rose to 15.1 tonnes in the first quarter of the year, compared with 25.6 tonnes in all of 2007, the Council’s figures showed. But demand was still only half of India’s.

China opened up its bullion market this decade. Gold hoarding was forbidden when the Communists took power in 1949. The Shanghai Futures Exchange, which began trading in January, is also trying to boost business.