More Chinese people are spending on fitness services. (Photo : Twitter/@muscle_fitness)
In an intensified bid to boost China's sports industry, experts are urging to tap fitness services and athletic entertainment.
According to a national mass exercise survey released by the China Institute of Sports Science, more Chinese people are spending on sport-related business.
Among the 81,828 respondents, 39.9 percent said they spend money on sport-related products such as equipment and trainers' fees and sportswear. The per capita expenditure averaged 926 yuan in 2014, a 52-percent increase from the 2007 figure.
Experts said that a manufacturing-centered consumption pattern indicates that China's sports industry remains in its infancy.
Jiang Chongmin, a senior researcher at the institute, said: "It suggests that the growth of the sports industry in China is still relying heavily on the manufacturing sector, a situation that lags behind world sports powers like the United States."
Last month, the Chinese government has also issued an ambitious plan that aims to foster the sports industry in the next 10 years. Authorities have set a target gross value of 5 trillion yuan by 2025, which is predicted to account for 1 percent of the GDP compared with 2012's 0.6 percent.
Lin Xianpeng, a sports industry professor at Beijing Sport University, said that in order to achieve the goal, shifting to fitness service and other competition-related businesses such as ticket selling should be a priority.
"More than 70 percent of the value in the sports industry in the United States was generated by pro-competition businesses. Compared with the U.S., we have a huge gold mine, with an immense number of potential business opportunities that have yet to be exploited," Lin remarked.
Lin's research showed that in 2013, the U.S. sports industry was valued at $450 billion, which was about 3 percent of its GDP.
