Yet another ultra-modern shopping mall is
opened in downtown Shanghai.
20 year it was announced that the infla
tion rate in the second six months of
1994 had been above 25%, particular
ly in the big cities.
Skyline
The cities in which the economic
boom is most visible are Shanghai,
Guangzhou and Shenzhen. A journey
through these cities is an eye-opener
for Westerners who still have images
of China as it was in the 1970s. The
three cities have undergone a meta
morphosis over the past ten years.
Seen from the air, the skyline of cities
like Guangzhou and Shenzhen is no
less impressive than that of a medi
um-sized American city. Skyscrapers
are under construction everywhere.
Particularly the Pearl River Delta
looks like one immense building site.
In both Shanghai and Guangzhou
the bustle of commerce is ever-
present. Trading on the street, trading
THE WORLD OF HEINEKEN
in modern shops; it is almost incon
ceivable that there was still hardly
any commerce in these cities a mere
five years ago. The big hotels are fill
ed to 90% of capacity and, whilst
Chinese businessmen wait in the
lounge for a new series of negotia
tions with their counterparts from
Hong Kong and Taiwan, they con
stantly use their portable telephones
to keep in touch with other business
contacts.
Colourful
But not only the outward appear
ance of the cities has changed; their
inhabitants, too, have very quickly got
used to all the trappings of a higher
standard of living. Stores with audio
and video equipment, expensive
brands of clothing; where uniformity
was still the norm ten years ago, there
is now room for colourful branded
clothing and people want to make
that clear. The interest in branded
products is growing by the day.
Owning your own car is seen as the
summit of prosperity. And the econo
my is growing so strongly that more
and more people can afford such an
investment. In Guangzhou there were
600,000 cars five years ago, at the end
of last year as many as 1.8 million!
The infrastructure of cities like
Shanghai and Guangzhou has not
kept pace with the new situation.
Consumer buying power is growing
faster than the government can build
new roads. That enormous influx of
cars plus the hundreds of thousands
of cyclists and a complete absence of
road discipline make traffic in these
cities a chaos.
