The Annual Conference of Financial Street Forum 2025 was held in Beijing from October 27 to 30.
During the four-day agenda, over 400 financial leaders, policymakers, and industry experts from more than 30 countries and regions gathered in Beijing’s Financial Street.
The core area of Beijing’s Financial Street, spanning 2.59 square kilometres, has witnessed and carried the process and achievements of China’s financial reform and development over the past three decades since it was approved by the State Council of China to be developed as a national financial management centre.
As an important platform for the country’s opening up and development, the Financial Street Forum has been seen as a barometer of China’s financial reform and development.
This year, top leaders from China’s financial sector once again gathered at the conference’s opening ceremony, responding to pressing issues from the outside world regarding China’s current economic development and the trends in the financial market.
At this year’s meeting, a new consumption trend has drawn attention.
In recent years, the once-common practice of Chinese shoppers buying goods overseas and reselling them in China, known as daigou in Chinese, has given way to a new trend: an increasing number of international consumers are now purchasing products from China to take home.
This wave is emerging as a new force in global consumption. Technology products have become the main items for foreigners to purchase in China.
For instance, wireless headphones and phone cases are all bestsellers.
Sheikh Fayaz Ahmad, an assistant professor at Zhejiang University International Business School, stated in an interview that China produces numerous economic and innovative products, including vacuum cleaners and basic medical equipment, which he often purchases when returning to India from China.
Ma Qing, Chief Representative of the Asia Pacific Region and Head of China Research of the Institute of International Finance, believed that international consumers buying products from China is actually a form of arbitrage, and the space for arbitrage depends on the price gap.
The current situation might be as follows: after the United States raised tariffs, the prices of goods in the United States are significantly higher than those in China, so people buy goods in China and import them to the United States.
