China will rank as the world's biggest market for luxury goods in five years, a blue paper on China's commercial development from 2009 to 2010 released in Beijing Wednesday said.

Released by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the blue paper said China's luxury goods market had increased to 9.4 billion U.S. dollars by the end of 2009, accounting for 27.5 percent of the world's luxury goods market and supplanting the United States as the world's second largest luxury goods market

In five years, the market for luxury goods in China will reach 14.6 billion U.S. dollars, becoming the largest in the world, the paper predicted.

The paper said most luxury goods makers have opened outlets in Chinese metropolises and provincial capital cities.

With increased competition, however, some of the makers have opened outlets in smaller cities, too.

The paper quoted a Mckinsey & Company report as saying rich consumers in China are generally younger than those in other countries, although it gave no definition for such a consumer.

The report found 80 percent of China's rich consumers are under the age of 45, while only 30 percent of such consumers in the U.S. and 19 percent in Japan are under 45.

The paper quoted the Hurun Report 2009 as saying the average age of people with personal wealth over 100 million yuan is 43 in China and those with wealth over 10 million yuan is 39.

In addition, the paper said young people born in the 1980s, especially those with wealthy parents, have a better awareness of luxury goods and are more likely to buy them.