Have China’s super-rich lost faith in the country’s embattled economy?
China’s super-rich are losing faith in the country’s financial future as fears caused by slowing global trade and stuttering economic liberalisation cause concern.
According to a paper published in January by Hurun Report, a Shanghai-based research firm, just over one-third of the super-rich Chinese citizens now describe themselves as “very confident” about the future of the Chinese economy.
That seems like a solid number, but it is startling when compared to the same survey two years ago, which showed that nearly two-thirds were very confident in China’s economic future. It is also the lowest number in the 15 years the survey has been produced, Hurun said.
The same survey from Hurun showed that the number of wealthy Chinese who have “no confidence at all” in China's economic future has doubled from last year’s survey, and now sits at 14 per cent.
Hurun’s survey of 465 super-rich Chinese citizens showed that almost half are considering, or are already in the process of, leaving China.
Word of China’s wealthy elites losing faith in the future of China’s runaway economic success story comes at a time when the country faces a major crossroads, with the continuing trade dispute with the United States, and a general slowdown in growth.
Chinese economic growth, while still very high by the standards of developed economies, continues to slow. At the end of 2018, it expanded at the slowest year-on-year pace since the height of the Great Recession.
The Chinese economy grew by 6.6 per cent over a year earlier, down from 6.9 per cent in 2017, official data suggested in January.
Hurun’s survey of 465 super-rich Chinese citizens showed that almost half are considering, or are already in the process of, leaving China
Not only is growth slowing, but many Chinese elites are reportedly fearful that the economic liberalisation that helped make China the second largest economy on Earth is stuttering under the Xi regime, and that it could eventually lead the country down a troubling economic path.
A New York Times profile on the subject published in February suggested that some rich citizens are even scared that China could end up following the same path as the once prosperous Venezuela.
“Few are predicting a crash, but worries over China’s long-term prospects are growing,” the newspaper said. “Pessimism is so high, in fact, that some business people are comparing China’s potential future to another country where the government seized control of the economy and didn’t ease up: Venezuela.”
The report did not provide any examples of business people making such claims.
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- Hurun Report says almost half of super-rich are considering, or are in the process of, leaving China