Will shopping save the Chinese economy?

Listen Quentin Somerville reports from Beijing ( 3 mins 56 secs)

Recent sales figures are up 20%

Unlike much of the rest of the world, China's economy is in relatively good shape.

Its banks are very conservative: no sub-prime mortgages or complicated derivatives for them. And Chinese people are some of the most diligent savers in the world.

The country has got richer thanks to free-spending shoppers in the West.

But how will the world's fastest growing major economy perform, if the rest of the world stops buying 'Made in China'?

The Chinese government hopes that its own, increasingly wealthy, people will take up where western shoppers left off.