Shopping
In Guangzhou
Historically Guangzhou has been an important port
for Chinese foreign trade, a business center of South China area. For the last fifty years
since the People's Republic of China was founded, the commerce in Guangzhou has developed
rapidly and tremendous changes have taken place. It has become the one of the major
industries in national economy, and plays an important role in socialist construction and
market economy development.
For the past fifty
years, the total retail turnover of social consumer products in Guangzhou has increased
almost 512 times, from RMB 177 million to RMB 90.457 billion in 1998, with an average
annual increase rate of 13.57%. In 1998, the total retail turnover of social consumer
products in Guangzhou ranked the 3rd among the big cities in China, just a bit behind the
one in Shanghai and Beijing. The increased value of trading and catering industries is RMB
17.569 billion, which is 9.54% of the national output value of the city, ranking the 4th
among all kinds of national economies.
Guangzhou also
experienced a tortuous history in commercial development. In the past, the operation modes
in commerce were rather simple. Besides those large comprehensive department stores, the
specialty stores were unitary, like sugar, cigarette and wine store, groceries, hardware
stores, stores of articles of daily use, etc.. With the further development of the
socialist market economy, the operation patterns of commerce have gradually become
multifunctional and multi-level, and the great changes have taken place in the
organization of the enterprises.
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