Financial Services Talking Points | 29/11/2018

In today’s talking points Melbourne and Sydney considered leading destinations for Property investment, U.K further becoming a hotspot for flourishing Chinese investment, and China’s economical ‘openness’ discussed by Vice-Premier in Hamburg speech.

 

Melbourne and Sydney considered leading destinations for Property investment

The recently published Emerging Trends in Asia Pacific report, conducted by the Urban Land INstitue and PwC, has placed both Melbourne (1st) and Sydney (3rd) as top destinations for property investment in the coming year. Judged by 350 industry professionals, including develops, brokers, investors and other service providers, both Australian locations were preferred owing to their deep and liquid markets that would be a beneficial shielding mechanism from a hypothetical future economic downturn.

On the flipside, Chinese cities such as Shanghai (6th), Shenzhen (8th), Guangzhou (10th) and Beijing (12th) all slipped compared to their 2017 report rankings, primarily due to economic and political factors such as rising interest rates, tighter credit regulations, and trade-war tensions.

Although Melbourne overtook Sydney for top spot in this year’s survey, the popularity of both cities as places for property investment overall conveys optimism for further growth in 2019.

Source: Mingtiandi

 

U.K further becoming a hotspot for flourishing Chinese investment

Due to stringent regulations imposed by the US in relation to Chinese outward investment, the United Kingdom, and specifically cities such as London, Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh have recently benefited from increasing Chinese investments. This has been further proliferated by domestic political uncertainties arising in the U.K from Brexit and the diminishing value of the British Pound as a by-product of this.

Chinese investments in the U.K totalled over $20 billion in 2017, and a new report from consultancy TMF Group and the China-British Business Council (CBBC) has suggested that this upward trend will continue throughout 2019. The report further contended that the United Kingdom’s attractiveness as an investment destination can be largely attributed to its services-oriented economy, thus boasting wide-ranging opportunities for financial input.

Whilst it remains unclear whether Brexit will take place, it is thus widely forecasted that Chinese businesses would be ideally placed to further flourish in terms of U.K foreign investment if this outcome did occur.

Source: Consultancy.uk

 

China’s economical ‘openness’ discussed by Vice-Premier in Hamburg speech

Ahead of the highly anticipated G20 Summit in Argentina on Saturday, China’s Vice Premier Liu He today reaffirmed his country’s commitment to further open its economy on a global scale.

He also mentioned that several Chinese sectors, including telecommunications, education and medical & cultural services were being specifically targeted in terms of openness. Positing that “China’s door of opening up will open even wider.”

Source: Financial Times