The survey showed that over the past six months, more than 52 percent of respondents had bought goods on credit through loans from financial institutions, and another 19 percent used credit cards to make purchases.

The survey, carried out by a center under the National Bureau of Statistics, involved responses from a total of 2,100 consumers in seven of China's large cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Zhengzhou, Chengdu and Xi'an, today's China Daily said.

Credit cards were the most commonly form of credit among residents with monthly earnings of at least 5,000 yuan (US$ 600). And the most popular items bought using credit were housing, automobiles and education.

The survey revealed as well that 8.2 percent of the respondents did not understand the concept of credit consumption, which was lower than the 8.9 percent from the first survey, conducted roughly six months ago.

As for the amount of credit, 30 percent of the respondents said they would require 50,000 yuan for purchases they planned to make in the future. People with higher levels of education and income demonstrated greater credit demands.

Beijing, Chengdu and Guangzhou were ranked as the top three in terms of total volume of credit in the past six months, while Shanghai was the last.

However, Shanghai was at the top among the seven cities in the number of individual citizens who engaged in credit-based consumption during the same period.

The dominant age group among the credit-based consumers was between 21 and 35 years old.

The top three factors working against the popularization of credit consumption were low income, habitual attachment to the use of cash and perceived difficulty in handling of credit-based transactions, the survey showed.

(EastDay.com 03/12/2001)