Shop until you drop in shiny Shanghai

Source: Xinhua | 2019-04-12

Shanghai has the world’s largest concentration of major global retailers after Dubai, Vice Mayor Xu Kunlin said yesterday.

Xu was speaking at the China International Retail Innovation Summit, where more than 100 executives from China and over 20 other countries and regions, including the United States, Italy, France, Germany and Japan, along with other experts and scholars are discussing innovation and development in the retail sector.

Xu told the conference Shanghai is working hard to promote the “Shanghai Shopping” brand.

Retail sales of consumer goods are over 1 trillion yuan (US$148.83 billion) and 90 percent of the world’s well-known high-end brands have a presence here.

In 2018, more than 3,000 international and domestic brands launched new products in Shanghai, and 835 new high-end international stores opened, accounting for about half of the first stores of international brands opened in China.

Massimo Volpe, chairman of the Federation of International Retail Associations, said that China has made great achievements in retail innovation, especially mobile payment.

Overseas retail companies can learn from China’s success and Chinese companies can also learn from advances overseas, Volpe said.