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BRIC SPENDERS W

UK fi rms must turn their attentions to the emerging middle classes of BRIC nations if they are to capitalise on growth, reports Richard Tyler

e’re selling a quarter of a million pairs a year now,” says Stuart Paver from the offi ces

Kharas predicts that the global

middle class will

grow by 4.6 per cent in real terms in spending power,

 12 | springboard | www.ukti.gov.uk

and by 5.3 per cent in terms of the number of people, between 2010 and 2020

of his eponymous business in the historic city of York. He is talking shoes, but his market is not the rolling dales of Yorkshire or even the UK, but his family fi rm’s three-year-old venture in India. “We do believe that within fi ve years we will get to the stage where the Indian company is bigger than the one in the UK,” he says. The family fi rm has spotted a trend that economists have been predicting for some time: the rise of the global middle class. By 2020, almost two billion people will move from subsistence living to having enough left in their pay packets to consume products and services that help them enjoy life more. The trend is, as OECD economists put it, for many more people around the world to be able to lead a comfortable life. In terms of buying power, this means households defi ned as those with the ability to spend between $10 and $100

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IMAGES: MARK JOHNSSON