No worries on China’s streets
The Yuan devaluation and China’s market crash has caused global chaos. But Rob Schmitz, Marketplace’s China correspondent in Shanghai, says people on the street in China really aren’t that worried. A Sichuan restaurant owner told Schmitz “that business is really good.”
“Most importantly [China’s] got a growing economy,” Schmitz says. “We’ve seen the headlines this week about China’s market crash … [but] China’s economy is continuing to grow at around 6 or 7 percent, faster than nearly every other economy in the world.”
Around the corner, fruit store owner Wang Tao tells Schmitz he doesn’t buy stocks because they don’t seem like a stable investment.
“Less than 7 percent of urban Chinese actually own stocks, and that’s a huge difference from the U.S., where around half of Americans own stocks,” Schmitz explains.
Schmitz talked to one man whose wife has stocks.
“He was really more worried about the news this week that China’s government was planning to invest part of the state pension fund into the stock market,” Schmitz says.
Because of this, there’s a lack of trust in China’s government and financial system.
“People really don’t care that much about what’s going on in the stock market,” he says. “But if the government starts putting their money into the stock market, that’s when people will start to worry a little bit more.”
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