Wedding costs contribute to GDP growth

Chinanews, Beijing, Sept 13 – The Ministry of Commerce and the China Wedding Industry Investigation and Research Center will soon release a report about the Chinese wedding market investigation for the year 2006-2007. The report shows that in 2006 and 2007, the wedding costs in China totalled 1.5 trillion yuan. Due to the rising housing price, the wedding cost for a newlywed couple might equal their four years' total income. At present, upwards of 80% of the newlyweds need to get financial support from their parents in organizing their wedding ceremonies.   The report shows that wedding cost contributes a great deal to the country's GDP growth. Im 2006, about 1.5 trillion yuan was spent in things directly related with wedding ceremonies and another 1.2 trillion yuan was spent in industrial sectors closely related with wedding. All in all, wedding costs contributed to 13.36% of the GDP in 2006.   By investigating the wedding costs of 60,000 newly married couples, the report finds that in 2006 and 2007, each new couple spent 141,500 yuan on average for their wedding. If the optional extra items were deducted, the average costs for a new couple reached 126,600 yuan. Such costs did not include the spendings on house purchase (or house rental fees) and car purchase. For young couples in Shanghai, Guangzhou and Beijing, their average wedding costs far exceeded this figure.   The report shows that in China, every newly married couple spent 162,900 yuan on average in the house purchase, which far exceeded their direct wedding costs (126,600 yuan ). At the same time, the report finds that for the 60,000 new couples included in the report, their average monthly income was only 6249.1 yuan. This means that their spending on housing was 26 times their monthly income and their direct spending on wedding was 20 times their average monthly income. The wedding cost of a new couple equaling their four years' total income is, of course, far beyond the young couple's affordability.