Rise despite Corona: China’s economy is back

Jed every Saturday, the little Anfu street in Shanghai’s former French concession is experiencing a crowd these weeks. The cars are lined up close together on the one-way street. Twenty minute congestion times are not uncommon. On the sidewalk, the youths form hundred-meter-long lines, surrounded by red plastic tape and grim-looking security guards in black riot gear and hats.

It is not a vaccine against the coronavirus that the mostly female crowd is waiting here, in which very few wear masks. Here enthusiastic shoppers from China put their legs on their stomachs to be able to enter the branch of “Brandy Melville” after 30, sometimes 45 minutes, a fashion chain from Italy that is very popular with teenage girls. The chain’s dark blue shopping bags mark the image throughout the district.

There are scenes like this in many places in the metropolis of 25 million people. Be it the branch of a new pharmacy chain like the Chinese supplier “Harmay”, which actually sells its cosmetics on the Internet and now sells them in sparsely furnished stores, or any other store, the masses are there. Lines also form in front of hamburgers and ice cream parlors.

Return for exports and consumption

Retail sales grew 3.3 percent in September compared to the month of the previous year. While a strict lockdown is being considered in Germany and in many parts of the rest of the world, China overcame it in the painful weeks of spring. Exports and consumption are coming back now, and they are causing the second-largest economy to grow again almost as fast as it did before the crisis.