China’s overall economic growth slowed in 2015.The quarterly growth for 2015 was as low as 6.8 per cent. Though clothing categories and cosmetics recorded a 8.8 per cent increase in December.

In the physical space, online retail sales of food, clothing and commodities rose 40.8 per cent, 21.4 per cent and 36 per cent. Online retail sales of physical goods rose 31.6 per cent. Online retail sales of non-physical goods rose 42.4 per cent. Retail sales of consumer goods totaled rose 10.7 per cent over the previous year.

Retail sales of clothing, shoes and textiles increased by only 6.9 per cent in December 2015. Total retail sales were under 10 per cent, a record low for almost 30 years.

Market prices are higher today than they were in 2014, the year when China surpassed the US to become the world’s largest economy (in terms of purchasing power parity). But even at that time China’s economy was already slowing. The growth rate averaged 10 per cent in 1980-2010, but fell to seven to eight per cent from 2012 to 2014.

Moreover, China’s once seemingly inexhaustible surplus of rural labor willing to migrate to urban areas has largely disappeared, causing wages to rise and the country’s competitive advantage in labor-intensive manufacturing to weaken.