Australian businesses should be targeting China’s rapidly growing middle class, says Tony Cripps, Chief Executive Officer of HSBC Australia. 

The comments were made at HSBC’s Australia’s third annual Australia-China Conference, which focused on the evolution of China’s society and the anticipated impacts on Australia’s economic future.

Approximately 60-80% of China's huge urban population with be middle class within a decade, said Cripps.

"China’s economy is moving slowly but surely from industrial to service-based; from rural to urban; and from growth through exports to growth led by domestic consumption," he said.

The spending power of China's burgeoning middle class is mind boggling.

"More cars were sold in (China) in 2015 than in the US, Japan, Germany, India and the UK combined," said Cripps. 

Cripps identified tourism and education as key areas of growth.

He said Chinese travelers made 120 million trips overseas last year, three times as many as in 2007. In 2009, 350,000 Chinese tourists visited Australia, and by 2015, that number was 1.2 million. HSBC forecasts that 2.5 million Chinese tourists will visit Australia in 2024.

Chinese student numbers are also forecast to rise, having risen from 140,000 to 170,000 in the past three years, and expected to exceed 280,000 by 2020.

Stuart Gulliver, Group Chief Executive, HSBC, said at the conference that, "Australia has used China’s momentum to propel its own economy more effectively than any other country in the OECD."

See also:

Why Chinese buyers aren’t going anywhere

Education is Australia’s largest service export

Chinese likely to keep investing in Australian real estate