MNI BRIEF: Chinese Residents Choose Saving Over Spending: PBOC

A record-high number of Chinese residents prefer saving money, while fewer say they are willing to spend, according to a quarterly survey by the People’s Bank of China published Wednesday. The survey comes at a time when rising global uncertainties and a worsening Covid outbreak weaken consumer confidence in the economy.

In a survey conducted across 20,000 residents in 50 cities, 23.7% of the respondents said they intend to "spend more," down 1 percentage point from the Q4 2021 survey. The level is now close to that seen in the initial Covid-19 outbreak in 2020. About 54.7% of respondents said they intend to “save more”, the highest on record.

In a separate survey of bankers, the Banker Confidence Index dropped 0.9 pp from the previous quarter to a one-year low of 34.4%. About 34.6% of bankers surveyed described the economy as “cooler”, a rise of 2.7 pp from the last survey.