‘I can’t get my money out’: billionaire investor Mark Mobius says China is restricting flows of capital out of the country
- He told the host of a Fox Business programme that he could not pull investment funds from his account in Shanghai
- ‘I would be very, very careful investing in China,’ said the former executive chairman of Templeton Emerging Markets Group
Billionaire investor Mark Mobius told Fox Business he cannot take his money out of China due to the country’s capital controls, cautioning investors to be “very, very careful” about investing in an economy under a tight government grip.
“I have an account with HSBC in Shanghai,” Mobius, founder of Mobius Capital Partners, told Fox Business in an interview published on March 2. “I can’t take my money out. The government is restricting flow of money out of the country.”
“I can’t get an explanation of why they’re doing this ... They’re putting all kinds of barriers,” Mobius said. “They don’t say, ‘no, you can’t get your money out’. But they say, ‘give us all the records from 20 years of how you made this money’ ... This is crazy.”
Mobius led emerging market investment at Franklin Templeton Investments for three decades and is known for his bullish views on China. Now, though, he said, he “would be very, very careful” investing in the country.
“The bottom line is that China is moving in a completely different direction than what Deng Xiaoping instituted when they started the big reform programme,” he said, referring to the former Chinese leader.