2010-12-04

Chinese hoard goods to fight inflation


There's a big feature on hoarding goods and inflation fighting investments.
全民皆囤 囤的是商品也是无奈, which says everyone is hoarding and they are helpless. The above picture shows a Chinese couple putting their money into daily expenses (the characters would directly translate as life) and the drip that is left afterwards. The caption below says people watch what they eat and drink, and try to find ways to save money.

There are many many articles, one is about "Farm Goods Speculative War"
农民品炒作大战
It has a timeline of rising prices for garlic, pepper, potatoes and other agricultural commodities.

Here's an article about a garlic speculator who turned 780,000 RMB into 7,800,000 RMB.
人算不如“添”蒜 刘伟国炒大蒜78万变780万

There is a term, 海囤族, which refers to people whose hoard is vast like the sea. From what I gather, this term refers to compulsive hoarders, but now it is being used to describe regular people who are trying to fight inflation. This article's headline roughly translates as "To defeat the CPI, which goods should hoarders store? Which have value?"
战胜CPI“海囤族”都在囤什么 究竟值不值

Here's an article called "Cotton price shock wave: clothing store turns to storing cotton, yarn and fabric."
棉价冲击波:服装企业转入囤棉囤纱和囤布行列

Another trend is going to Hong Kong to buy goods because they are much cheaper. This is very popular with young women because luxury goods in China are expensive due to tariffs, but now housewives in Shenzhen (very close to HK) and Guangzhou (about 2 hours away) are making the trip just to stock up on shampoo and other necessities. Later in the article, it also says that jewelry stores in Hong Kong have started renting jewelry because customers cannot afford to buy, it seems the target market is for weddings.
省钱高手赴港囤货购物 结婚金饰也去香港租

There are also stories about land hoarding by property developers
圈地黑金:开发商囤地一年半载 收获数亿横财

And it wouldn't be complete without advice on which type of gold to buy to preserve value.
给缩水资产“镀镀金” 买什么黄金最保值

All of these articles are from the last two plus months, and most are newer. They were put together for this huge feature and it shows the degree to which Chinese fret about inflation. In one of the articles, it mentions that vegetable prices are up 50% this year. A one noodle shop I eat at, the cheapest bowl of noodles has maintained its price, but the one that has some green vegetables went up 15% in price just this week.

No comments:

Post a Comment