China's retail¹ sales in 2018 are projected to catch up with and surpass those in the United States, in yet another sign of China's transition into an economic superpower, reports The Washington Post.

 

《华盛顿邮报》报道，据预测2018年中国零售销售额将赶超美国，这是中国成为经济超级大国的另一迹象。

 

The Washington Post cited data released by Japan's Mizuho Bank that said China's retail turnover² in 2018 is to exceed 5.8 trillion U.S. dollars, very likely surpassing the retail turnover in the United States this year. A decade ago, retail turnover in China was only one-fourth of that in the U.S.

 

The report pointed³ out that the rapid growth in China's sales volume is supported by increases in wages, saying that the per capita income of the Chinese people over the past ten years has increased by three times from 2,000 U.S. dollars to 8,000 dollars. "It will be the first time that America is dealing⁴ with a market of equal size in potential trade wars. The ever-growing Chinese domestic market is its best bargaining chip," said Shen Jianguang, chief China economist⁵ for Mizuho Bank.

 

As two of the world's largest and most highly interconnected economies, any substantial changes to the trading conditions between the two countries might have a destabilizing effect. "Over 20 percent of the sales volumes of many U.S. multinational⁶ companies like General Motors, Boeing, and Apple come from the Chinese market," said Shen. This means that restrictions⁷ to the Chinese market will affect the turnover of U. S. companies.

点击收听单词发音