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World Economic Forum 2008

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Spending money

  • Tim Weber
  • 23 Jan 08, 06:11 PM

The Davos quote of the day comes from Cheng Siwei, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of China's National People's Congress, and thus a communist (well, in a Chinese kind of way).

In one of the many discussions about the state of the global economy, several Americans called on Chinese consumers to spend more, to make up for the downturn in the United States. After all, China's savings rate stands at 50%, the US savings rate is in single digits.

Persuading the Chinese to flock to the shops would be tricky, said Mr Cheng: "The Chinese save today鈥檚 spending for tomorrow, and the Americans spend tomorrow鈥檚 saving today."

Touch茅. The whole room collapsed in laughter and applause.

Comments   Post your comment

  • 1.
  • At 06:42 PM on 23 Jan 2008,
  • tom eile wrote:

Quite witty I suppose . But surely not funny enough to make people "collapse with laughter and applause" ? More likely that the financial elite gathered at Davos were trying to ingatiate themselves with Mr (Cde)Cheng .

  • 2.
  • At 07:33 PM on 23 Jan 2008,
  • Pallavi Kishore wrote:

So true that I wish it wasn't!

  • 3.
  • At 11:33 AM on 24 Jan 2008,
  • Marton wrote:

And we at Business Guide in Switzerland also collapsed laughing... Simply because it is a perfect description of two cultures who must somehow coexist on a planet that is becoming very, very small.

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