How’s China’s Economy Really Doing? Mario Looks At Baby Births & Tesla Sales. by MARIO CAVOLO 中國經濟的真實情況如何？ 馬里奧關注嬰兒出生和特斯拉銷量

Hey friends, let’s start with Tesla sales, no no, baby births! Well, let’s talk about both, shall we. We all know its ridiculous for me to talk about those two items which have absolutely nothing to do with each other besides infant car seat sales, right? I’m done teasing and moving on to how these two data points give us some real world insight into how the Chinese urban economic households are doing these days. The strength of China’s economy post pandemic is one of the most closely watched key indicators the world is keeping a close eye on.

First I should remind you that BYD has become the world’s premier #1 selling EV in the world, with monthly sales far surpassing that of TESLA, who shall always remain admired as the pioneer of the industry. However, while that’s good for BYD, here’s the fresh great news about May sales of Tesla vehicles in China; they are up a super duper 142 % year on year!

Tesla’s Shanghai plant delivered close to 78,000 vehicles in the month of May here in China…that must have made Elon Musk’s recent China visit all the better, as he lauded the plant for its production efficiency and quality.

Let me point out that, much as McKinsey research reports have been telling us for years, this news of Tesla sales points us to an understanding of how well China’s upper middle class consumer category is doing. As I’ve also mentioned, BMW is doing terrific in China, too. And in case you’re still not convinced, China’s consumer households added another 6 trillion RMB to their bank savings accounts over the past year as well. The western world where middle class households are living paycheck to paycheck and don’t have a dime in the bank still can’t comprehend how China’s households manage to save money even during hard times. All I will tell you before moving on is that for several reasons, the cost of living here, the monthly household budget is far lower than it is in countries like the United States. Reasons include very low cost of healthcare, no need for vehicle ownership debt with plenty of high quality, cheap public transportation and much lower costs for daily groceries, utilities & rent.

So then, we can see, we can conclude, we can recognize with relatively high confidence, China’s economic recovery post pandemic is not fabulous, yet not in a state of melting like a bar of chocolate in the endless desert sands of Inner Mongolia where our son and his school class recently enjoyed a week long holiday sliding down the sand dunes & riding the camels.

So in asking how well the middle class are doing in mid 2023, the answer is that they are doing ok. They are surely not doing as well as the upper middle class but the bottom line is that China’s economy post pandemic has its weak spots, good spots and hot spots. None of this surprises me as I observe it. It is pretty much exactly as I’ve always expected it would be post pandemic. I have nothing unusual or particularly surprising to report to you. I am aware of a rather famous restaurant chain catering to the middle class and I know from their inside sources that retail business is tough, yet not so tough that they are ready to go out of business. In fact, they are even still opening up a couple of new locations as well. So, the mood is “tough, but not a disaster”.

Moving on to a much more personal, warm & fuzzy topic, the joy of newborn babies, let’s consider what’s happening with China’s birthrates as a measure of China’s urban household economy. We must note and not forget, overall worldwide, birthrates are declining. Household burdens are increasing and hence, birthrates are in overall decline. This is not special to China. Its pretty much everywhere.

Yet next, I report amazingly good news on the bedroom escapades of Shenyang’s apparently happy, financially stable husbands & wives. Looking at what’s happening regionally in the northeast of China in Liaoning province, at Shenyang’s top 5 star private maternity hospital; Roicare Clinics & Hospital, we find a bright spot in the otherwise worrisome trend for humanity.

Roicare hospital, which opened 7 years ago in 2016 is surely known in the entire region as the top caliber maternity hospital, whose fees for maternity care are around 2x the fees of the well worn, yet ridiculously reasonably, reliable & reputable local public maternity hospital wards found in Shenyang.

That is to say, Roicare’s basic birth/delivery/hospital stay package goes for around US $2800 and that’s without any health insurance reimbursement. If a local couple in Shenyang decides to have their birth at one of the well-established local public hospitals, the fee would be around half of that, about $1200-$1500. Not bad if you ask me.

For comparison’s sake, let us note that where universal healthcare exists such as health care in the EU, such services cost very little while in the United States, well, the costs of health insurance and such hospital services are disconcertingly high, with the bill in the thousands of dollars.

I am delighted to share the unique Roicare maternity hospital birthrate story with the hospital recently celebrating its 10,000th birth since opening 7 years ago in 2016. That’s alot of babies and a few quick punches in the calculator tell us that is an average of 120 births per month or around four births each & every day. I am informed by reliable direct inside sources, being my darling wife, working for over three years at the hospital, that of course, during the pandemic years, monthly births were below this monthly average. Yet, here comes the really, really super duper good news delightfully, serendipitously in line with our Tesla vehicle sales. As of the past couple of months, the monthly newborn births at Roicare hospital have been hovering around 200 per month!

So apparently friends, China’s middle/upper middle class households are doing pretty darn good these days. The opening up of the Chinese economy post pandemic has been one of the most watched economic indicators across the world and China is hanging in there.

Just six months after the country has opened back up post Covid, the middle / upper middle class households are buying more Tesla’s than ever and making more babies than ever.

Are they doin’ it in the backseat, I wonder? 🙂

Cheers friends, Mario