China’s consumer push fails

Monday 13 October 2025

Not that it was ever really a serious push, and paltry efforts make for paltry returns.

Golden Week sales are in and pfft.

Domestic interregional passenger travel rose 6.2% year over year but major merchants’ and caterers’ retail sales gained just 2.7% year over year.

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About the author

David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.