Can Australian planners service China?
The Federal Government believes financial planners can be amongst those who can benefit from the China Free Trade Agreement and the Trans Pacific Partnership by delivering services into an increasingly affluent but ageing Chinese market.
The Federal Treasurer, Scott Morrison has told a Bloomberg summit that in the next 15 years, China and India together will be home to over two billion new middle class consumers, with China's middle class projected to increase from around 12 per cent of the population in 2009 to 70 per cent by 2030.
"As the Chinese people grow wealthier, we have a new opportunity to broaden the range of goods and services we provide. With rising incomes comes increased demand for high quality meat and produce, creating opportunities for our farmers to capitalise on a growing market," he said.
However the Treasurer said this emerging middle class would also have greater demand for more sophisticated goods, and a broader range of services, "especially the financial and professional services at which Australians excel".
"I'm advised that for every dollar we spend buying Chinese goods and services as Australians, the Chinese spend two dollars buying our goods and services," Morrison said.
"There are enormous opportunities for our engineers, our doctors, our accountants, our architects, our financial planners and so many more."
He said the proportion of the Chinese sixty-plus age group would grow more than threefold — from 10.9 per cent to almost 36 per cent — over the next 50 years and that the population of those aged eighty and older would expand nearly fourfold — from 1.8 per cent to 6.8 per cent.
"By 2019 the proportion of people age sixty and older in China will exceed that of people ages 0-14," Morrison said.
"Coinciding with the expansion of China's social safety net, there are enormous opportunities for our doctors, health care workers, health service providers — especially aged care and nursing care — our accountants, and our financial planners."
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