Dramatic decline in Swiss watch exports to China signals shift in prosperity
One weird trick for tracking the health of China's economy? Look at how many Swiss watches it's importing.
There are plenty of ways to measure prosperity. GDP growth. Per capita disposable income. Height and lifespan. And, also, imports of Switzerland’s famously high-end horological goods.
To wit, June numbers from the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry, which showed a tumultuous decline in exports to China and Hong Kong, which in recent years were some of the main destinations for Swiss time pieces.
“June was not a positive month for Swiss watch exports,” the group said in its admirably direct press release.
It’s just another indication of the drastic change in the trajectory of China’s economy, as well as the uncertainty facing its ruling political and business class, who once prized Swiss watches for their ability to simultaneously serve as a store of value and an efficient means of delivering high value bribes, in addition to their traditional role as a form of conspicuous consumption.
Party leaders recently laid out a new economic plan, and the central bank just cut rates in a bid to boost growth. But nothing that Xi Jinping’s regime has done has succeeded in shaking off the malaise that’s set in since the pandemic. Tick tock.
