'These days, who wants to save?'
The custom official cast a knowing glance at the handful of westerners in the long queue of locals waiting at the border between Shenzhen, China's richest boom town, and Hong Kong.
"You guys go to China to buy fakes," he said, pointing to Britons and Australians bringing back dubious Louis Vuitton handbags and shoes allegedly made by Prada. "But we go the other way to buy the real stuff."
The hundreds of mainlanders bursting to spend their hard-earned renminbi in the capitalist enclave of Hong Kong are just one sign of a revolution in Asia that is likely to transform global spending patterns: after decades of stashing away their savings, Asia's rapidly growing middle classes are turning into voracious consumers.
From China to South Korea and from Thailand to Indonesia, the western stereotype of the thrifty Asian is fast becoming outdated. "These days, who wants to save?" asks a young bank clerk, hurrying between jewellery shops during her lunch break at the MBK shopping mall in Bangkok, capital of Thailand, a country in the throes of a consumer boom. "Interest rates are lousy, credit is cheap and the economy is stable."
The average Asian still has only about $6,000 a year of disposable income, compared with $25,000 a year for the average American. But as Asians get richer - gross domestic product per capita has risen more than 50 per cent in the past 10 years - and as the proportion of young people increases, consumption is a growing part of their daily lives.
South Korean households today save only half as much as 10 years ago. Indonesian counterparts spend 80 cents of every dollar they earn, more than at any other time in the past three decades. In Thailand, badly scarred by the 1997 crisis, consumer confidence is close to a seven-year high.
At the recent launch of a Mercedes model in Bangkok, Chatvithai Tantraporn, general manager of DaimlerChrysler in Thailand, was approached by an elderly woman from Northern Thailand demanding to buy the car with a plastic bucket filled with cash.
And with the exception of Hong Kong and Singapore, Asia's consumption spree has not been diminished by external factors. Despite global economic uncertainty and the recent epidemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome, one in six Asians plans to buy property or a car in the next six months, according to AC Nielsen, the market research consultancy.
As a symbol of consumption, consider the Berjaya Times Square Mall that opened last week in Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital: a $474m project larger than the US Pentagon and boasting Asia's biggest indoor roller-coaster.
This changing consumer behaviour is prompting some global luxury goods makers to invest increasing amounts in the region in the hope that it will replace the mature US and European markets as a source of consumer spending (see below). But the trend could also have profound implications for the region's economies. After decades during which exports were the main driver of growth, Asia is discovering that domestic demand can also be a powerful economic engine.
This is particularly important when export growth is threatened by increasing US and European pressure to let Asian currencies appreciate. "Domestic demand is clearly crucial for Asia to maintain its economic momentum," says Dong Tao, chief Asian economist at Credit Suisse First Boston. "Private consumption is playing a key role in differentiating outperformers from underperformers."
More balanced economic growth would reduce Asia's reliance on external trade and investment from foreign multinationals, giving governments more leeway to run their economies via monetary and fiscal policy.
This could be crucial in rekindling strong economic growth in south-east Asia, whose place as the world's manufacturing hub has been all but usurped by China. "Policymakers are beginning to realise that they can no longer earn a good economic living by simply being the assembly part of the global mass production chain," says Daniel Lian, south-east Asia economist at Morgan Stanley.
The rise of the Asian consumer could also have repercussions beyond the region. If Asians continue to spend more and reduce their savings in US dollars, it may become more difficult for the US to fund its own spending.
Before such radical changes take root, two questions need to be answered. First, is the increase in private consumption a lasting structural change in the region's economies, or simply an unsustainable rebound after Asia's 1997 meltdown? And second, what are the main risks associated with a consumer boom in Asia's fast-growing, but still fragile, economies?
Tales of elderly villagers purchasing luxury cars with buckets of cash hardly seem signs of a healthy consumer economy. But behind such out-of-control spending is a story of more sustainable consumption. Expenditure on luxuries has indeed grown: spending on eating out and hotel occupancy has doubled in the past 10 years across Asia. But such spending is still dwarfed by the amount of money that Asian consumers put into sectors such as housing, education and basic needs.
According to Sriyan Pietersz, head of research for Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines at JP Morgan, the rise in consumer expenditure is sustainable because of favourable economic conditions. "Credit is available, there is increased consumer confidence and expenditure is easier to finance than it was. Who benefits from this? The consumer does," he says.
CSFB's Mr Tao argues that demographics and economics - a young population, rising GDP and cheap finance - augur well for the future: "In the long term, I think Asia has a far brighter consumption outlook than the rest of the world."
But the sustainability of consumer spending will also depend greatly on governments' policies. It is no coincidence that in countries where increases in consumption have been most pronounced, such as South Korea and Thailand, governments encouraged citizens to spend. But the two countries illustrate different ways of trying to stimulate consumption.
In Thailand, the government of Thaksin Shinawatra, the prime minister, has spent heavily to try to boost domestic consumption and reduce the country's dependence on exports and foreign direct investment. Measures include a scheme to build up to 1.7m homes for low-income families, which according to some estimates could add $20bn - or 3 per cent a year - to GDP in the next half-decade. In addition, a low-cost mortgage scheme for state employees has channelled Bt43bn ($1bn) of cheap financing to 59,000 public sector workers, while tax breaks have also sought to induce more people to buy their own homes.
So far Thaksin's spending spree appears to have had the desired effect. Citigroup estimates that Thailand's economy will grow 6 per cent this year - Asia's highest growth rate after China's and India's - with domestic consumption rising 5.8 per cent, the largest percentage increase in seven years. The rise in Thailand's domestic consumption has prompted governments in Indonesia and Malaysia to adopt similar measures.
South Korea has taken a different approach. Unlike the public pump-priming practised by Thailand, it showered consumers with cheap credit.
South Koreans used to be among the world's biggest savers, encouraged by their government to fund the country's industrialisation. But when the 1997 crisis left the financial sector crippled by bad debts to rotten conglomerates, banks switched their attention to individual consumers. Households were urged to borrow and spend.
South Korea's gross domestic savings rate has shrunk from 33.5 per cent of GDP in 1999 to a forecast 27.3 per cent of GDP this year, according to Fitch, the credit rating agency. The ratio of household debt to GDP is 78 per cent, up from 50 per cent in 1999.
At first, this consumption spree appeared to be the saviour of South Korea's economy. Banks were returned to profit by surging retail business, while increased domestic consumption allowed the economy to bounce back more strongly than any other in the region, with GDP increasing by 6.3 per cent in 2002. South Korea's credit card market grew about 50 per cent to $97bn last year after almost doubling in 2001, stimulated by tax incentives on card spending and aggressive marketing. Today, South Korean adults carry an average of 4.5 cards each. d4 However, this supply of cheap credit led to consumers borrowing and spending more than they could afford. Alarmed by the threat of a second financial crisis, the government ordered lenders to apply the brakes to consumer credit. Lower lending and credit limits led to a surge in defaults. Over the past year the economy has plunged into recession as consumers and lenders have buckled beneath a growing mountain of household debt. From 1-2 per cent last year, credit card companies' average delinquency rate - the ratio of payments overdue by more than a month - has increased to about 10 per cent this year. Last week two leading banks, Kookmin and Shinhan, issued profit warnings owing to rising credit card defaults.
South Korea's troubles are a clear warning of the pitfalls of an unfettered rise in domestic consumption. The consumer credit boom seen in South Korea has been replicated in much of Asia. In the past 12 months, bank loans in the region have been outgrowing deposits for the first time since just before the financial crisis, according to David Scott, Deutsche Bank's regional strategist. In China, where personal loans for consumption and housing were virtually unheard of 10 years ago, the country's already troubled banks lent Rmb100bn ($12bn) to consumers in 2002.
Visa, the largest credit card issuer in the region, had issued 193m cards at the end of June, more than double the amount in 1996.
But few experts believe the boom in consumer loans poses as big a threat to the region's financial health as over-lending to companies did before 1997.
Asian banks are much less exposed to individual customers than their US and European counterparts. Last year, consumer loans were 22 per cent of GDP in Asia, compared with 36 per cent in the US and 58 per cent in Germany, according to CSFB. Even if consumers began defaulting in large numbers, the overall economic effects would be less serious than if companies stopped repaying debt, because the amounts would be smaller and the collateral more easily recoverable.
The consumer spending spree, therefore, may not be about to drag Asia into another crisis. Is it enough to play a bigger role in driving growth alongside exports?
Tim Condon, a former World Bank official now with ING, argues that manufacturing will remain the cornerstone of Asia's economic growth for years to come. "Asia is a place to build stuff, not to buy stuff," he says. "You just have to look at the foreign exchange policies. Central banks are clearly demonstrating every intention of keeping currencies undervalued to drive export growth."
Japan is highlighted as a country where private consumption has failed to lift the economy. With personal disposable income close to US levels, Japan's consumers have traditionally been much richer, and saved less, than those in other Asian countries. Yet the country has been mired in sluggish growth for more than a decade.
This has led to a situation where Japanese consumers do not spend for fear of more years of high unemployment and low growth. Massive government spending of the kind that has stimulated demand in countries such as Thailand is seen as storing up debt that will eventually have to be repaid through higher taxes.
Yet if Japan, and perhaps South Korea, can still hope that future growth will be driven by a pick-up in exports, most other Asian countries are running out of choices.
China is firmly established as the region's dominant export hub and the principal magnet for foreign investment. Between 1993 and 2000 China took some $284bn of foreign direct investment that would otherwise have gone to south-east Asia, according to Morgan Stanley - contributing to a sharp slowdown in the growth of those economies.
For many Asian countries domestic consumption is the last line of economic defence as investment that might generate export-led growth disappears into the giant in their midst.
Additional reporting by Ien Cheng and Angela Mackay in Hong Kong, Amy Kazmin in Bangkok, Bayan Rahman in Tokyo and Andrew Ward in Seoul
“这年头，谁还愿意存钱？”
在香港深圳间的边境口岸，等候过关的本地人排成了长龙，几名西方人也夹杂在这长龙中。一位深圳海关官员向这几名西方人投去会意的一瞥。
“外国人来中国买假货，”他指着几个英国人和澳大利亚人说道，“但中国人正相反，去香港买真货。”这几个英国人和澳大利亚人从中国带回不知是哪里制造的路易威登(Louis Vuitton)手袋，还有据说是普拉达(Prada)生产的皮鞋。
这些排队等候过关的大陆人将在资本主义的胜地香港尽情消费，把自己辛辛苦苦挣来的人民币悉数花掉。这是一个信号，预示着在过了数十年勒紧裤带尽力储蓄的日子后，数量迅速增长的亚洲中产阶级正在变成如饥似渴的消费者。亚洲正在经历一场可能会改变全球消费模式的革命。
西方人一直对亚洲人有节俭的印象，但从中国到韩国，从泰国到印尼，这种印象正迅速过时。“这年头，谁还愿意存钱？”一名年轻的泰国银行职员问道。泰国正苦苦盼望着一场消费热潮的降临，这名职员利用午餐休息时间，在泰国首都曼谷的MBK购物中心内匆匆逛着珠宝店。“利率太低，而信贷很便宜，经济稳定。”她说。
目前，亚洲人平均每年的可支配收入仍然仅有约6000美元，而美国人的年均可支配收入为2.5万美元。但在过去10年内，亚洲的人均国内生产总值(GDP)增幅已超过50%，亚洲人正变得越来越富有。而且，随着年轻人占总人口比例的增加，消费正日渐成为亚洲人日常生活中的一个重要部分。
今天，韩国家庭投入储蓄的钱仅为10年前的一半。印尼家庭的消费支出则占收入的80%，比过去30年内任何时期都高。而在遭受1997年金融危机重创的泰国，消费者信心指数已接近七年新高。
戴姆勒克莱斯勒(DaimlerChrysler)最近在曼谷推出了一款新型梅塞德斯(Mercedes)轿车。一名来自泰国北部的老年妇女找到戴姆勒克莱斯勒泰国分公司的总经理查特维泰?唐特拉蓬(Chatvithai Tantraporn)，要求用满满一塑料桶现金购买这款轿车。
除香港和新加坡外，亚洲的消费狂潮并未受到外部因素的抑制。市场调查咨询公司AC尼尔森(AC Nielsen)的数据显示，尽管全球经济前景仍不确定，且近来爆发非典疫情，但六分之一的亚洲人仍计划在未来6个月内购买房产或汽车。
如果要找一个消费的象征，就想想成功时代广场购物中心(Berjaya Times Square Mall)吧。这家购物中心上周在马来西亚首都吉隆坡开业，共耗资4.74亿美元，面积比美国五角大楼还大，而且拥有亚洲最大的室内过山车。
这种消费行为的变化正促使一些全球奢侈品生产商在亚洲追加投资。他们期望亚洲市场能取代成熟的欧美市场，成为新的主力消费区。不但如此，这一趋势还可能对该地区的经济产生深远影响。过去数十年来，出口一直是亚洲经济增长的主要动力，而现在，亚洲国家发现国内需求也可以成为强大的经济驱动力。
这在当前显得尤为重要，因为欧美正不断对亚洲国家施压，要求亚洲货币升值，使亚洲的出口增长受到威胁。“显然，国内需求对亚洲保持经济增长势头非常重要，”瑞士信贷第一波士顿(CSFB)的首席亚洲经济学家陶冬表示，“在区分哪些国家经济增长强劲，哪些国家经济增长乏力时，个人消费正在成为一个关键指标。”
如果经济增长更为均衡，亚洲将能够减少对外部贸易和外国跨国公司投资的依赖，而且政府在通过货币和财政政策驾驭经济发展时可以更有余地。
目前，中国几乎已取代东南亚，成为全球的制造业中心。要重新激发东南亚经济强劲的增长势头，更均衡的经济增长就变得十分关键。摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)的东南亚经济学家连春明(Daniel Lian)表示：“决策者已开始意识到，经济要获得良好发展，仅仅充当全球大规模生产链条中的组装环节已经不够了。”
亚洲消费者的崛起很可能影响到亚洲以外的地区。如果亚洲消费者继续增加支出，减少美元储蓄，则美国为本国的消费支出提供资金可能会变得更加困难。
在彻底完成这种根本性变革之前，需要回答两个问题。首先，在该地区经济中，个人消费的增长是一个持久的结构性变化，抑或仅仅是亚洲1997年经济崩溃后一个无法持续的反弹？其次，在飞速增长却仍较为脆弱的亚洲经济中，消费热潮带来的主要风险是什么？
老年村民用满桶现金购买豪华轿车，这样的故事似乎很难说明消费经济处于健康状态。但在这种失控的开销背后，确实有一种消费更具持续性，这就是奢侈品消费的支出增长。在过去10年内，整个亚洲的外出就餐支出和酒店入住率均增加了一倍。但与亚洲消费者在住房、教育和基本需要等方面投入的资金相比，上述支出仍相形见绌。
JP摩根(JP Morgan)印尼、泰国和菲律宾研究主管斯里扬?皮埃特兹(Sriyan Pietersz)表示，由于亚洲的经济状况良好，因此该地区消费支出的增长是可持续的。他说：“消费者能够获得信贷，信心增强了，消费借贷也比过去更容易获得。谁是受益者？是消费者。”
瑞士信贷第一波士顿的陶先生表示，人口和经济数据显示，亚洲人口呈低龄化，GDP不断增长，融资成本低廉，这些均预示着良好的未来。他说：“从长远来看，我认为亚洲的消费前景比世界其它地区都要光明得多。”
但消费支出的可持续性在很大程度上也要取决于政府政策。在消费增长最显著的韩国和泰国等国家，政府都鼓励公民消费，这并不是巧合。不过，这两国在刺激消费方面采用了两种截然不同的方法。
在泰国，总理他信?秦那越(Thaksin Shinawatra)领导的政府投入巨资，试图刺激国内消费，减少泰国对出口和外国直接投资的依赖。政府采取的措施包括：一项为低收入家庭建造170万所住房的计划。据估计，该计划可能会为泰国今后5年的GDP额外贡献200亿美元，或帮助GDP每年增长3%。此外，泰国政府针对国家公务员实行了一项低成本的按揭计划，该计划已为5.9万名公共部门员工提供了430亿泰铢（合10亿美元）的低成本融资，而减税措施也意在鼓励更多人自购房屋。
到目前为止，他信政府的巨额支出似乎已收到了预期的效果。据花旗集团(Citigroup)估计，泰国经济今年将增长6%，这一增长率在亚洲仅次于中国和印度；而泰国的国内消费增长率将达5.8%，创7年来最大增幅。在泰国国内消费增长的激励下，印尼和马来西亚政府也采取了类似措施。
韩国走的是另外一条道路。与泰国实行的用公共财政刺激经济发展不同，韩国向消费者大量提供便宜信贷。
过去，由于韩国政府鼓励民众资助国家的工业化进程，韩国曾是全球储蓄率最高的国家之一。但随着1997年亚洲金融危机的爆发，大型企业集团遭受重创，留下的坏账使韩国金融业陷于瘫痪。在这种情况下，银行将注意力转向个人消费者，并力劝家庭借贷和消费。
1999年，韩国国内总储蓄率为GDP的33.5%。据信用评级公司惠誉(Fitch)预测，今年该比率将降至27.3%。家庭债务与GDP的比率今年将为78%，高于1999年的50%。
起初，这股消费热潮似乎成了韩国经济的救星。零售业务飙升，帮助银行扭亏为盈；而国内消费的增加使韩国经济的反弹力度超过了该地区任何其他国家，2002年GDP增长率达到6.3%。在刷卡消费的税收激励政策及声势浩大的营销活动推动下，韩国信用卡市场2001年几乎翻了一番，2002年则增长了大约50%，规模达到970亿美元。今天，韩国成人人均拥有4.5张信用卡。然而，低成本的信贷供应导致消费者的借款和消费额度均超过了偿付能力。在又一次金融危机的威胁下，韩国政府命令银行对消费信贷采取限制措施。贷款额度和信用限额的降低导致欠款数量剧增。随着消费者和贷款机构被越积越高的家庭债务压得喘不过气来，韩国经济在过去一年里已陷入衰退。信用卡公司的平均拖欠率从去年的1%至2%上升至今年的10%左右。拖欠率是指逾期1个月以上未归还的贷款比率。由于信用卡欠帐数额不断增加，上周两家主要银行国民银行(Kookmin)和新韩银行(Shinhan)均发出了盈利预警。
韩国遇到的问题对国内消费无节制的增长是一个明确的警告。曾在韩国出现的消费信贷热，已在亚洲许多国家重现。德意志银行(Deutsche Bank)的地区策略师戴维?斯科特(David Scott)称，在过去12个月里，亚洲地区的银行贷款一直高于银行存款，这是自金融危机爆发前夕以来首次出现这样的情况。10年前，个人消费贷款和住房贷款在中国几乎闻所未闻，但在2002年，中国的银行尽管已身陷困境，但仍向消费者提供了1000亿元人民币(合120亿美元)的贷款。
到6月底，亚洲地区发行量最大的信用卡公司维萨(Visa)已发行1.93亿张信用卡，较1996年增加了一倍多。
但很少有专家认为，与1997年前向企业过度贷款相比，目前的消费贷款热将对该地区的金融状况构成同样严重的威胁。
与美国和欧洲的银行相比，个人消费贷款在亚洲银行业务中的比例要低得多。瑞士信贷第一波士顿称，去年亚洲的消费贷款占GDP的22%，而美国为36%，德国为58%。即使大量消费者开始拖欠贷款，对经济的整体影响也比企业不再偿还贷款要小，因为个人消费者拖欠额较小，且抵押品也更易于收回。
因此，消费支出热潮或许不会把亚洲拖入另一次危机。那么，它是否足以与出口一起，在推动经济增长方面发挥更重要的作用呢？
蒂姆?康登(Tim Condon)曾任世界银行(World Bank)官员，现就职于荷兰国际集团(ING)。他认为，未来几年内，制造业仍将是亚洲经济增长的基础。“亚洲是生产东西的地方，而不是购买东西的地方，”他说，“你只要看看各国的外汇政策就清楚了。各国央行维持币值低估以推动出口增长的意图十分明显。”
说到个人消费未能促进经济增长的国家，日本是一个突出的例子。日本的人均可支配收入接近美国，因此日本消费者通常比亚洲其他国家的消费者富有得多，储蓄得更少。然而在过去10余年内，日本经济一直陷在增长乏力的泥潭中。
这种情况使日本消费者担心，在今后数年内，高失业率和低增长率仍将持续，因而不愿消费。大规模的政府支出刺激了泰国等国家的需求，但在日本人看来，此类举措徒增债务，最终将不得不通过增加税收来偿还。
然而，如果日本(也许还有韩国)仍能把推动未来经济的增长寄希望于出口回升，那么亚洲多数其他国家的选择余地也将逐渐减少。
中国已牢固确立起亚洲出口主导中心和主要外国投资吸纳国的地位。摩根士丹利的数据显示，1993至2000年间，在中国吸收的外国直接投资中，大约有2840亿美元本来是会流入东南亚的。这是东南亚国家经济增长急剧放缓的原因之一。
对许多亚洲国家而言，国内消费是最后一道经济防线，因为本可能促进外向型经济增长的大部分外国投资都被中国这个巨人吸纳走了。
成光言(Ien Cheng)和安吉拉?马凯(Angela Mackay)香港、艾米?卡兹明(Amy Kazmin)曼谷、巴扬?拉赫曼(Bayan Rahman)东京及安德鲁?沃德(Andrew Ward)汉城补充报道。
