广播听力:Private Services Popular in China

Anchor: More Chinese urbanites, especially middle class people, are looking for personal services such as one-on-one gym coaches, stylists, doctors, and psychiatrists. The booming market is bringing huge profits to private consultants but also risks to individual customers.

Let's find out more with reporter Liu Min.

Fitness coach Zhang Xuehua offers personal trainings at a gym in Nanning, a second tier city in Southwest China. He says his business these days is extremely good with a lot of people asking for private classes.

"The demand for personal fitness coaches is growing rapidly in our city. Many people are booking these services and some people's appointments have even been arranged as far ahead as year 2014."

There are mainly three types of personal services: health consultants, such as fitness coaches, psychiatrists and nurses. The second category focuses on improving wealth rather than health, like financial consultants. The third type is about lifestyles, such as personal baby-educators, dieticians, and fashion consultants.

It's become a new fashion to use these personal services among white collar workers. They have even given these personal service providers a nickname: "Xiao Si" in Chinese, which basically means personal helper.

However, psychiatrist Luo Yanming says the industrial standard in China is not clearly set.

"For example, in western countries, a bachelor or master's degree can't give you the credentials to work as a psychiatrist, you have to have a PHD in this area. And plus, you've got to have working experience in hospitals or communities. But in China, many people just need to take some training classes and pass an exam to acquire a certificate."

A survey conducted by Chinese Academy of Social Sciences shows, more than 50 percent of Chinese urbanites have demands for private doctors; with this emerging market commanding 18 billion yuan in profits annually. In the United States, there are 800 thousand lawyers in cities, which means every 300 urbanites share one lawyer. But in China, every 12 thousand Chinese share one lawyer's services.

The huge demand has also created many individual consultants in all kinds of areas. However, experts remind customers to sign a service contract before receiving any services. Lin Lin from Nanguo Law Firm says the contract needs to include contents such as expenses, service content and privacy protection clauses.

"Customers need to set service standards on the contract. Without these clauses, then you can't protect your rights when the consultant doesn't reach the your requirements or even hurt your interests."

Personal services are regarded by the economists as a revolutionary consumption phenomenon in China, bringing huge profit potential. But for common consumers, what we should do is to open our eyes to make rational choices.

For CRI, I'm Liu Min.