Publications

- September 1, 2013: Volume 5, Number 8

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What’s up with China?: Is slower growth going to push Chinese investors into foreign markets?

by Alex Eidlin

The past few months have seen a flood of research reports predicting slower growth in China. At the same time, well-known China perma-bears changed their views and prognosticated that despite economic trouble China will survive and may even continue prospering. Some of the numbers were puzzling, and I wanted to sort out what consequences these scenarios may have for real estate investment opportunities in China and a possible flight of Chinese capital into foreign real estate markets.

During the past several quarters, the reported official growth numbers clearly pointed to a downward trend. Second quarter GDP growth decelerated to 7.5 percent from 7.7 percent in the first quarter. It was 7.9 percent in the last quarter of 2012. According to official statistics, China has not grown slower than 7.6 percent since 1990. If these numbers are true, which will be a huge leap of faith, given the fact that Premier Li Keqiang himself described them as “man made” and “for referenc

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