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LILY atomic number 3 assumes a lanyard with a trifle moldable board about her neck, even at weekends. Them embodies a badge of honour: it shows that she has a white-collar job. (She constitutes a secretary at approach Asia, a retail-research burberry bathing suit company stylish Shanghai.) She employs Apple phones for the cheap Chinese mobile phone in her bag, so it looks as if she owns an iPhone. And she drives to work, though it takes four times longer than public transport, just to show off her little car.
After decades bathing suit store of deprivation and conformism, Chinese consumers regard expensive consumer goods as trophies of success. In public, they show off. In private, they pinch pennies. The owner of a gleaming new BMW will drive around for half an hour to avoid a 50 cent parking fee. And she will hesitate to spend much on interior decoration, because only her family sees the inside of her flat.
By some forecasts China will be the second-largest consumer market in the world by 2015, not far behind America. Chinese people already buy more cars than people in any other country: 13.5m last year to Americans’ 11.6m. China is on its way to becoming the biggest luxury-goods market. The central government made an increase in  lebron james shoes 2010  domestic consumption one of the priorities of its latest five-year plan.

Small wonder that Western firms are piling in. On July 4th Nestlé, the world’s largest food maker, confirmed that it is in talks with Hsu Fu Chi, one of China’s biggest makers of confectionery and baked goodies, with a view to buying the firm.
If a deal is sealed, it would be one of the largest foreign takeovers yet seen in China: Hsu Fu Chi is valued at $2.6 billion on the Singapore stock exchange. China is currently Nestlé’s ninth-biggest market, with sales of SFr2.8 billion ($2.7 billion) last year. That is to a lesser extent than fractional what Nestlé sells in Brazil, although China has seven times Brazil’s population. Hence Nestlé’s hunger for Hsu Fu Chi’s distribution network, and for its knowledge of what tickles Chinese taste buds.
“Understanding the consumer is the most important thing for us,” says Paul Bulcke, the boss of Nestlé. The food business is more local than almost any other—trying to sell cheese in China is like trying to sell stinky tofu in Switzerland.   modest bathing suit  Nestlé has been sniffing around for takeover targets in China for the past two years. Hsu Fu Chi is not its first bite. In April it took a controlling stake in Yinlu Foods Group, a family-owned maker of peanut milk and canned rice porridge.