The bank has issued a report entitled "The Rise of the Chinese Consumer Revisited", indicating that China now represents 3.8 percent of global household consumption spending and remains on track to become the world's second largest consumer market in US dollars.

In the report, Credit Suisse cites results from a proprietary survey conducted in China in December of 2005. This is the second major survey by Credit Suisse on this topic, with the first one released in September 2004.

The 2005 study confirms Chinese consumption spending will likely represent approximately 11 percent of total global consumption spending for 2014, or about 3.7 trillion US dollars, versus 3.8 percent for household spending in 2005, up from an estimate of 2.9 percent in 2004. By 2014, Chinese consumers are expected to incrementally spend more US dollars than their US counterparts.

China remains the seventh largest household consumer marketplace but looks poised to overtake Italy in 2006, France in 2007 and Japan by 2014.

Head of Emerging Equity Market Strategy and Global Coordinator of China Research at Credit Suisse, Jonathan Garner has commented on the survey. He is quoted as saying: "The new survey increases our confidence in our original base case that China is set to become the world's second largest consumer spending market within ten years. However, it also points to the challenges of tapping into this growth with only a handful of companies achieving dominance within their individual sectors."

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