China’s rich spent US$54 billion at home on luxury goods last year with coronavirus halting overseas trips

HONG KONG, Jan 18 (SCMP): The coronavirus presented affluent families in China with a new challenge last year: just how were they going to spend some 350 billion yuan (US$54 billion) of disposable income on luxury items like jewellery and watches with overseas travel and shopping virtually impossible.

“Before the outbreak, we would travel abroad a lot every year, or even live for a while away from the mainland. Last year I turned to shop more for watches, diamonds and gold to compensate for the regret for not being able to travel abroad,” said Rachel, who lives in the southern city of Shenzhen with her husband who runs an e-commerce company.