OPINION

Chinese savers won't save China

News, Christopher Balding, Published on 09/07/2018

» Chinese are, in the popular imagination as well as some economic statistics, inveterate savers. According to the International Monetary Fund, the Chinese savings rate stood at an astonishing 46% in 2016, compared to a global average around 25%. Chinese planners have long sought to bring that ratio down in order to promote consumption and ease the economy's overreliance on investment. If only Chinese would shop more, the thinking goes, China wouldn't need to rely on smokestack factories and boondoggle infrastructure projects to drive growth.