JWT’s anxiety index highlights consumer concerns in China and India

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New Delhi: While the recession has dominated the press over the past year, it is not the primary cause of stress for Asian consumers, especially in the two largest countries – China and India.

“While the economic recession has been pervasive in the media, consumers in Asia expressed concern for a wide range of issues.” Michael Maedel, JWT President elaborates on the findings from their recent survey, “In fact, China compared to countries around the world had little concern for the economy. Yet, they are extremely worried about other issues such as food safety. Indians have some concern for the economy but are very optimistic about the recovery and instead are more concerned about threats to their personal security.”

CHINA

Overall, consumers in China are much less anxious than consumers in other parts of the world. Only 35% of the respondents in China are anxious compared to 90% in Japan, 74% in India and 79% in the United States.

In fact, Haidong Guan, JWT’s Shanghai-based Planner, recently wrote an article titled “Is there a financial crisis in China?” Even though the survey showed that half of those intending to purchase a car in the past 6 months have cancelled or postponed their purchase due to the economic downturn, car sales in China have surpassed sales in the U.S. When the global financial crisis began, pundits worried about the impact on China due to it’s export driven economy. Haidong reflects, “With by far the largest economic stimulus plan in the world, China seems to have weathered the worst of it.”

The one sector in China that has been significantly impacted is the export sector, which has seen an estimated 20 million lay-offs. Primarily, low-skilled workers have been affected. Since China has a weak social security system, it is not surprising that the low income respondents have exhibited the most anxiety.

The only area where China’s consumer’s showed a dramatic level of anxiety was over food safety issues, which is not surprising considering the 2008 milk scandal, which affected 300,000 people in China. The World Health Organization referred to the incident as one of the largest food safety events it had had to deal with in recent years, and that the crisis of confidence among Chinese consumers would be hard to overcome.