The retail industry in Singapore is experiencing a boom in sales from Chinese tourists, according to Global Refund Singapore, a leading Central Refund Agency for GST to tourists, visitors from China are now amongst the top five groups of spenders visiting the country. This trend is expected to continue further as Singapore gets ready to be the first country in the world to receive its millionth visitor from China by the end of this year.

Chinese visitors, who are currently also the second largest group of travellers to visit Singapore, have progressively emerged over the last two years to be among the top 10 spenders. Their total shopping expenditure, between January and October this year, is a significant increase of 20% over the same period last year. This places them alongside the Australians, Indians, Indonesians and Japanese in terms of having the highest total expenditure on shopping.

Rodney Teo, Managing Director of Global Refund Singapore, said, "The population of China is becoming more affluent by the day. The knock-on effect of the growth of the economy is an explosion in retail spending. Over 20% of Chinese visitors to Singapore are also business travellers, thereby helping to generate even more spending in the country."

In August this year, Singapore played host to 11,000 delegates from Amway Corporation in Greater China, for whom Global Refund conducted exclusive promotions. The group's total 25-day stay in Singapore fuelled a significant expenditure within that short period.

According to Global Refund, the main attraction for more than 20% of Chinese visitors to Singapore is shopping, and this makes up almost 60% of their total expenditure. Specifically, almost half of the 800,000 Chinese tourists' expenditure between January and September this year went towards the purchase of watches and jewellery while fashion and clothing took second place in terms of favourite product categories.

"While goods like silk, arts and crafts, tea and traditional Chinese medicine are sold at very affordable prices in China, higher end products such as watches and jewellery tend to be a more attractive purchase in Singapore. Besides, more than 35% of Chinese visitors to Singapore are aged between 26 and 35 years, the age group that also is presumably not just keen on keeping up with the latest trends and products but is financially able to do so," Rodney added.

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