Last year, global retail giants like Carrefour, Metro and especially Wal-Mart purchased for more than 200 billion yuan (US$25bn) in China. This huge volume proves that China already has become a world manufacturing centre, said professor Hong Tao of the Beijing Industry and Commerce University to the Chinese newspaper People's Daily.
China’s cheap prices did lead to this huge volume in only five years time, said Mr. Hong Tao, who sees pros and cons to this situation. It contributes a lot to China’s soaring foreign trade volume, but it also brings energy and raw material pressure to China.
The Beijing Daily quoted sources at german retailer metro Group as saying that for this year the german retailer intends to purchase goods worth 300 million yuan (US$37.5mn), which are sold for 90 per cent in metro’s Chinese outlets. Every year Metro buys for some 19 billion yuan (US$1.6bn) from China, which is tenfold the purchasing volume French retailer Auchan represents in China. In 2004 Carrefour purchased in China for 25.7 billion yuan, a volume it increased to 36.8 billion yuan in 2005. In 2003 Wal-Mart bought commodities worth 120.4 billion yuan in China. In 2004 Wal-Mart increased this to 144.5 billion yuan.