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China Retail Sales
Retail sales in China changed dramatically in the late 1970s
and early 1980s as economic reforms increased the supply of food
items and consumer goods, allowed state retail stores the freedom
to purchase goods on their own, and permitted individuals and
collectives greater freedom to engage in retail, service, and
catering trades in rural and urban areas. Retail sales increased
300 percent from 1977 to 1985, rising at an average yearly rate of
13.9 percent--10.5 percent when adjusted for inflation. In the
1980s retail sales to rural areas increased at an annual rate of
15.6 percent, outpacing the 9.7-percent increase in retail sales to
urban areas and reflecting the more rapid rise in rural incomes. In
1977 sales to rural areas comprised 52 percent of total retail
sales; in 1984 rural sales accounted for 59.2 percent of the total.
Consumer goods comprised approximately 88 percent of retail sales
in 1985, the remaining 12 percent consisting of farming materials
and equipment.
The number of retail sales enterprises also expanded rapidly in
the 1980s. In 1985 there were 10.7 million retail, catering, and
service establishments, a rise of 850 percent over 1976. Most
remarkable in the expansion of retail sales was the rapid rise of
collective and individually owned retail establishments.
Individuals engaged in businesses numbered 12.2 million in 1985,
more than 40 times the 1976 figure. Furthermore, as state-owned
businesses either were leased or turned over to collective
ownership or were leased to individuals, the share of state-owned
commerce in total retail sales dropped from 90.3 percent in 1976 to
40.5 percent in 1985.
In 1987 most urban retail and service establishments, including
state, collective, and private businesses or vendors, were located
either in major downtown commercial districts or in small
neighborhood shopping areas. The neighborhood shopping areas were
numerous and were situated so that at least one was within easy
walking distance of almost every household. They were able to
supply nearly all the daily needs of their customers. A typical
neighborhood shopping area in Beijing would contain a one-story
department store, bookstore, hardware store, bicycle repair shop,
combined tea shop and bakery, restaurant, theater, laundry, bank,
post office, barbershop, photography studio, and electrical
appliance repair shop. The department stores had small pharmacies
and carried a substantial range of housewares, appliances,
bicycles, toys, sporting goods, fabrics, and clothing. Major
shopping districts in big cities contained larger versions of the
neighborhood stores as well as numerous specialty shops, selling
such items as musical instruments, sporting goods, hats,
stationery, handicrafts, cameras, and clocks.
Supplementing these retail establishments were free markets in
which private and collective businesses provided services, hawked
wares, or sold food and drinks. Peasants from surrounding rural
areas marketed their surplus produce or sideline production in
these markets. In the 1980s urban areas also saw a revival of
"night markets," free markets that operated in the evening and
offered extended service hours that more formal establishments
could not match.
In rural areas, supply and marketing cooperatives operated
general stores and small shopping complexes near village and
township administrative headquarters. These businesses were
supplemented by collective and individual businesses and by the
free markets that appeared across the countryside in the 1980s as
a result of rural reforms. Generally speaking, a smaller variety of
consumer goods was available in the countryside than in the cities.
But the lack was partially offset by the increased access of some
peasants to urban areas where they could purchase consumer goods
and market agricultural items.
A number of important consumer goods, including grain, cotton
cloth, meat, eggs, edible oil, sugar, and bicycles, were rationed
during the 1960s and 1970s. To purchase these items, workers had to
use coupons they received from their work units. By the mid-1980s
rationing of over seventy items had been eliminated; production of
consumer goods had increased, and most items were in good supply.
Grain, edible oil, and a few other items still required coupons. In
1985 pork rationing was reinstated in twenty-one cities as supplies
ran low. Pork was available at higher prices in supermarkets and
free markets.
Data as of July 1987
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