Ningbo's above-quota sales top 4t yuan in 2022

Ningbo's retail sales of social consumer goods recorded a yearly uptick of 5.3 percent to 489.67 billion yuan ($71.9 billion) in 2022, ranking second in East China's Zhejiang province.

The sale volume of the city's above-quota retailers expanded 11.8 percent to 4.1 trillion yuan, taking up the largest share (34.1 percent) in Zhejiang, according to the Ningbo Municipal Bureau of Commerce show.

The proportion of non-local customers stood at 15 percent, which was lower than cities including Hangzhou (33 percent), Nanjing (29 percent) and Hefei (28 percent).

Residents' marginal propensity to consume, or MPC, which is calculated by marginal consumption divided by marginal income, has for many years stood around 0.6 in Ningbo, versus the national average of 0.7, which means their willingness to spending is not particularly strong.

Official statistics show that Ningbo's per capita consumption expenditure was 42,997 yuan in 2022, a year-on-year increase of 6.2 percent, which is far lower than the 17 percent growth rate recorded in the previous year.

Nevertheless, the city has been experiencing an upgrade in consumption. The proportion of physical consumption such as clothing and food among local residents decreased from 76.5 percent in 2015 to 74.8 percent in 2021, while service consumption like medical care over the same period surged from 23.5 percent to 25.2 percent.

The silver economy has also been booming as the city is marching into an even more aged society with people aged above 60 accounting for 18.1 percent of the total.