The consumption confidence of Chinese bankcard holders warmed up in the first quarter of this year and is expected to rebound further in the second quarter, according to statistics revealed yesterday by China UnionPay and Xinhua.

China UnionPay and Xinhua have recently launched an index, called BCCI, to track changes in the consumption behavior of Chinese bankcard holders. The index bounced back to 86.95 in the first quarter of this year from 86.88 in the last quarter of 2008.

The most depressed sentiment of Chinese bankcard holders was in the first quarter of last year, when the index fell to 83.62.

"The year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter increase of BCCI indicates that the global financial crisis is not impacting Chinese consumers in a big way," said Xu Luode, president, China UnionPay, the country's bankcard network operator. "We expect the index to increase further in the second quarter."

Lu Xiaoming, chief economy analyst of Xinhua News Agency, said consumption has been relatively stable compared with exports and investment, indicating that the stimulus packages have boosted consumer confidence.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, retail sales nationwide totaled 2 trillion yuan in the first two months of this year, an increase of 15.2 percent on a yearly basis.

In addition to the government's 4 trillion yuan stimulus package, other measures like education and healthcare reforms and lifting residents' income would also help stimulate rural consumption.

Meanwhile, most global financial institutions and industry experts are optimistic about the country's economy this year.

The World Bank said on Tuesday that fueled largely by the huge economic stimulus package, a recovery in China's economy is likely to begin this year and take full hold in 2010.

Sun Mingchun, economist, Nomura International, said China's economy will see a V-shaped recovery this year, with the GDP growing as much as 10 percent in the first quarter of next year.

(China Daily April 10, 2009)