Red carpet show for dogs [File photo: Xinhua]

To many people, pets are part of the family. No wonder then that an increasing amount of money is being spent on making them happy and healthy.

Data from Taiwan media, suggests the pet economy in the Chinese mainland is growing by 30% every year, attracting many entrepreneurs eager to exploit an increasingly lucrative market, including some luxury commodity brands and high-end hotels, reports cankaoxiaoxi.com.

According to Want Daily, an investigation report on China's pet industry and consumer behaviors issued by Dog Network and Pet Fair Asia, suggests the scale of the so-called pet industry in 2015 reached 97.8 billion yuan (14 billion USD), and based on current trends, it's estimated that the size of the pet industry will surpass the threshold of 200 billion yuan (29 billion USD) in 2020.

According to Jia Tong, CEO of Dog Network, raising a pet is a sign of increased leisure as the economy develops. Tong says that pet raisers in China are mostly professionals and white collar workers who have spare time and money. They mostly have an income between 6,000 yuan and 12,000 yuan. They live mostly in coastal areas where economy is relatively developed. They aspire to spend 500 yuan every month on raising their pet.

Pet Fair Asia this year in Shanghai embodies the trend of spending a considerable amount of money on pets. More than 60,000 people visited the pet fair this year, spending 1,000 yuan per day on average. Some pet raisers spent 3,000 yuan alone on just one item of clothing for dogs.

Wu Jinhua, market director of Pet Fair Asia, says that as the economy continues to grow, against the backdrop of an aging childless population, the pet industry can only continue to see a strong development.