Hong Kong protests fail to slow city’s role as foreign investment gateway to China, government data shows
- China received US$62.9 billion in foreign direct investment via Hong Kong in the first eight months of 2019, accounting for 70 per cent of total inflows
- China’s state media named George Soros as one speculator who had bet on a Hong Kong market crash due to the anti-government protests that have lasted 100 days
Hong Kong’s role as the primary gateway for long-term international investors to transfer money into China has remained largely intact despite the city being hit by increasingly violent anti-government protests, according to data released by the Chinese government.
China received US$62.9 billion in foreign direct investment via Hong Kong in the first eight months of this year, accounting for 70 per cent of total inflows, according to the figures released on Tuesday.
The ministry did not release a breakdown of individual months, but according to calculations by the South China Morning Post based upon the official data, China received US$7.53 billion via Hong Kong in August, a hefty rise of 29.2 per cent from the same month last year.
In July, China received US$5.28 billion foreign direct investment inflows from Hong Kong, a slight fall from US$5.35 billion in July 2018, while in June that coincided with the start of the protests, flows from Hong Kong to China stood at US$12.19 billion, a modest rise from US$11.85 billion a year earlier.
Overall, in the three-month period from June to August, investment flows from Hong Kong into China were US$25 billion, a rise of 8.6 per cent from the same period in 2018.