Chongqing- "The rise of young consumer groups, consumption scenarios, and products with more technology and wisdom, like the Metaverse, will become the critical point to winning future consumption," said Liao Chenglin, a professor at Chongqing University School of Economics and Business Administration in a recent interview.

Southwest China's Chongqing ranked third in the 2022 Forbes China Consumption Vitality City List, after Beijing and Shanghai, according to the 2022 Forbes China Urban Consumption Development Forum on July 23 during the Fourth Western China International Fair for Investment and Trade (WCIFIT).

The list reflects the results of Chongqing's initiative to build an international consumption center, further revealing the fundamental role of consumption in Chongqing's economic development.

Metaverse market expected to be $5 trillion by 2030

According to the Western Big Data Frontier Application Research Institute, Chongqing is the city with the largest resident population in China. As urbanization continues to increase, the needs of citizens to consume are also rapidly upgrading.

Chongqing has to seize the new opportunities to maintain the growth of the city's future consumption, said Liao Chenglin. He addressed that the current characteristics of Chongqing's consumption market are still traditional with insufficient development and application of new consumption scenarios.

The Metaverse, a new outlet in the consumption area, is a good example. The global management consulting firm McKinsey reports that the size of the worldwide metaverse market is expected to grow to $5 trillion by 2030. In the case of Chongqing, some districts and counties have already started the Metaverse's layout.

For instance, Yongchuan Dawa uses virtual production, extended reality (XR), and other technologies to participate in the production of more than ten well-known online games and several famous movies. Aiming at the consumption market, Yongchuan District will deepen its development in technology films, digital rights, virtual humans, and online games so that the meta-universe becomes a new highlight of consumption growth.

Liao suggested that Chongqing should fully play the essential advantages of a smart manufacturing city and innovative city, exploring new consumption scenarios and products. It will make constructing an international consumption center city more confident and sustainable.

A significant gap in the construction of the consumer market

However, compared with cities like Beijing and Shanghai, Chongqing still has a significant gap in the construction of the consumer market, which needs to be faced squarely, said Liao. Thus, Chongqing must release consumption potential and promote consumption upgrades to optimize consumption supply further. 

Liao believes that Chongqing is bound to be a gathering place for global resources as an international consumption center city. Brands here must have a strong leading and driving role in consumption.

For example, Chongqing officially announced that the French department store chain Galeries Lafayette will settle in the International Land-sea Center, also known as Chongqing 100, which serves as the fourth store in China and the first in the Southwest.

Unlike other compact cities, Chongqing is surrounded by mountains and rivers with a multi-center and cluster arrangement urban spatial structure, which creats high travel costs and a long time commitments to navigate.

Liao proposed that only by improving the transportation convenience of citizens and making consumption more comfortable can Chongqing further stimulate citizens to go out for substantial consumption such as dining, shopping, entertainment, and cross-regional consumption.

(Zhu Qinzhuo, as an intern, also contributed to this report.)