Comparison Of Prices Between China And The United States: Commodities And Foreign Countries Are Expensive.

"In the United States, 9.9 dollars of shoes, 39.9 dollars of jeans, 30 T-shirts, the same brand in China is 499 yuan, 799 yuan and 799 yuan......"

In recent days, this "price" game has attracted more and more attention and participation.

Recently, a micro-blog has a very high forwarding rate on the Internet, which means that the purchasing power of China has exceeded the cost of consumption in the United States.

When interviewed by a number of expatriates, the interviewees generally asked the question: how do ordinary people in mainland China live?

Is the consumption of China really expensive? Where are they all? Are we really without a price advantage in addition to low wages?

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Cathy is a freshman at the University of Michigan School of medicine. She came to China for internship this summer vacation.

She said she was not a very sensitive person to price, but she was surprised by what she came to China.

In a shopping mall in Beijing, she saw a skirt, more than 700 yuan.

"The skirt of the American fashion brand is almost the same price (around us $100), which is what I thought before.

For nearly a month in China, the biggest feeling of Cathy is that the price of China is higher than that of the US as long as it is closely related to "foreign" products.

In the United States, Levi 's is not much of a "tide card". Most jeans cost $40-50 each, sometimes at a discount of $20.

In China, the brand's jeans cost five hundred or six hundred yuan.

Nike, Adidas

In a big city like New York, McDonald's packages are around $5, and small cities are as low as $2-3.

Even those classy restaurants, which require formal dress attendance, have a dinner party of about $50-60 plus a 15% tip.

When she learned that China had some tens of thousands of yuan and tens of thousands of Yuan's feast, it was "unbelievable", "what are they eating? Why are they so wasteful"?

As for housing prices in the United States, Cathy said her parents bought a house in Princeton, New Jersey, a year ago, two floors, five bedrooms, plus a small garden, which cost 800 thousand yuan (about 5 million 170 thousand yuan).

This is a relatively high price on the east coast of the United States (except New York), she said.

In some cities in the central part of the country, a house larger than this can be bought for 100 thousand dollars.

"I heard that China's per capita wage is only 1/10 of that of the United States, but the consumption level is almost the same as ours." Cathy said, "how do ordinary people live?"

"Beijing's consumption level is not inferior to that of Hongkong".

Mr. Yao, who works in Hongkong, told reporters that the level of consumption in Beijing has been comparable to that in Hongkong. If the exchange rate factor is considered, some will even be more expensive than Hongkong.

But in Hongkong, the starting salary of a college graduate is at least HK $ten thousand.

Miss Wang, who has just returned from Hongkong to Beijing, said that the reasons for the large number of mainland tourists going to Hongkong to sweep goods are not only cheap, but also because of the complete cargo and services.

For the medium and high grade consumer goods, the price of Hongkong is generally around thirty percent off of the mainland, and cosmetics are cheaper.

"There are few counterfeit goods in Hongkong, and the quality is more assured," she said. "And the discount in Hongkong is real. There will be no such tricky price increase and discount."

Miss Wang also mentioned that the cost of seeing concerts in Hongkong is much lower than that in China.

The average ticket price of local singers in Hongkong is only about HK $500, even if Faye Wong's superstar spends only HK $980, he will be in the front row.

In Beijing, Miss Wang spent 1000 yuan to buy a stand ticket, and the highest fare was 2200 yuan.

Expert opinion

The price is higher than the tax burden.

Yue Shumin, Professor of Finance and finance, Renmin University of China: {page_break}

The price of domestic consumer goods is generally higher than that of overseas. Some media claim that the biggest reason is the high tax burden, which is not objective.

Pricing strategy, market demand, product pportation cost and site rentals will affect product pricing, and the price factors of different commodities are not the same.

Although the government is responsible for certain factors that affect prices, the "board" can not be applied to the government. It should distinguish the responsibility of the government and enterprises through scientific and rigorous investigation.

Jin Dongsheng, deputy director of the Taxation Research Institute of the State Administration of Taxation,

The pricing of famous brands is not necessarily done according to the law of value.

Nowadays, the price of "sun" products is somewhat partial, and the statistical method is not scientific. It can not be concluded that China's consumption level is higher than that of foreign countries.

Tax regulation should ensure fairness.

Jin Dongsheng, deputy director of the Taxation Research Institute of the State Administration of Taxation,

Tariff is a special adjustment tool, which has a certain protective effect on protecting some weak industries in China.

If the tariffs on imported goods are reduced, the interests of some domestic enterprises may be damaged, so the relevant departments should weigh them carefully.

At the same time, if we want to reduce the excise tax and surcharge tax on imported products, we should also "reduce burdens" on similar commodities at home, so that it will not be contrary to the principle of fairness and interfere with and affect the normal operation of the market.

Yang Zhiyong, a researcher at the Institute of Finance and trade of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences,

The factors of price formation are manifold, but taxation is certainly a very important aspect.

Theoretically speaking, China's tax revenue is indeed necessary. However, because the indirect tax has become an important source of revenue in China, the structural adjustment of tax system is not an easy task.

Post interview

Domestic prices are not more expensive than foreign countries.

In the interview, several respondents generally believed that pportation costs in mainland China were relatively cheap, especially in Beijing.

Miss Wang said that the cost of taxi and subway in Beijing was cheaper than that in Hongkong. She worked from Hung Hom in Kowloon to Central Hong Kong Island every day. The cost of travelling by bus and by subway was 12 Hong Kong dollars.

Cathy said that although the 10000 yuan meal was difficult for her to understand, the general restaurant was still very cheap.

Her internship in a hospital canteen usually eats 5-6 yuan at lunch and tastes much more authentic than Chinese food in the United States.

Some small restaurants also have a set meal of only 10-20 yuan, while in the United States, the least expensive Chinese restaurant is about $6.

Netizens "micro" view

"Freight is higher than production cost".

The top of the wave: the goods produced in Guangdong are shipped to Beijing, which is more expensive than shipping to Losangeles.

Tide's washing powder is produced in Guangdong and shipped to Harbin. The cost of freight is higher than that of production.

Later Procter & Gamble had to open factories in the north.

In addition, China's retail tax is 17%, the US states do not exceed 10%, and individual states are zero.

@ Yu Xiaoping: Recently, China has been spreading the heat of the United States. Prices in the United States are lower than those in China, especially in the necessities of life, even even the same currency is lower than China's.

On the whole, the proportion of Americans' consumption expenditure is much lower than that of the Chinese.

If we take into account the ratio of expenditure to income and take into account the price performance ratio, I can see that only two things in the United States are more expensive than China, one is intellectual property and the other is artificial.

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@Vincent_YFV: US consumption tax 6%, China VAT (additional tax, reporter note) 17% but it can be deducted, the actual tax burden of enterprises is almost the same as that of the United States, but consumers' tax burden is too high, there are toll fees and other charges, as well as the lease and real estate prices promoted by the land finance, the profits of each agency segment and the cost of the administrative departments. These are the reasons why prices are high.