中国乳制品月报

We work worldwide on food and agribusiness markets around Asia, Africa, Central America, Europe, Oceania and so on. They're often fascinating and in many cases very reliant on food imports. However, size matters of course. With the declining births figures from China, its perhaps easy to forget just how important the market is. A recent World Data Lab update provided a good reminder, assessing the world's number of active consumers at 4 billion now, and pointing out that through the 2020s and beyond China and India will both show much greater growth in this spending class than the mature North American and European regions. The growth in China by their analysis comes to +237 million consumers by 2030. The figure for India is even higher (even though its consumer class is smaller than China's). Their forecast is that the two countries in combination will provide 55% of the world's new consumer class over the decade.

However, China is particularly important because of several factors. One is that China will make up a quarter of the global senior market (65+) by 2030 – we have been seeing this realisation increasingly if belatedly recognised by local and international manufacturers over a number of years. When I visited Chinese formulae manufacturers in the 1990s and early 2000's this wasn't on their agenda, but it certainly is now. According to data released prior to the event by the National Health Commission, the average life expectancy of people on the mainland is now 78.2 years, well up on the previous estimate of 74.8 years.

A second significant aspect is the sheer accessibility of the target audience for marketers: China is a much more urban market than India and by 2030, China's cities with over 5 million people will have 280 million inhabitants, while India will have 152 million. China's middle class is much larger than India's too, especially in its core and upper income segments.

However, exporters will be very aware that China's major dairy businesses continue to grow and upgrade, with improved ESG credentials as part of this, upping the ante for foreign competitors – earlier this month Longyou Yili Dairy Co., Ltd., one of Yili's sites in Zhejiang Province, became China's first liquid dairy plant to achieve certification to ISO 14046 after passing a water footprint assessment. Just one small recent instance of the local industry's rising level of sophistication.