25 October 2011
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On Friday, October 21, 2011 I did a Q&A interview with the National Real Estate Bisnow about Chinese investment in U.S. hotels. Here is the full Question & Answer exchange, a portion of which appeared in the Biznow article.
There’s been an explosion of Chinese investment in the US, especially real estate. And many people believe it will surpass the Japanese investment of the late ’80s (estimated to have exceeded $120B).
There’s been an explosion of Chinese investment in US real estate. Who’s investing and where, and how much investment do you expect in 2011?
The increasing wave of Chinese investment in the U.S. is being fueled by the Chinese government (generally acting through construction companies, banks and other intermediary companies) and an exploding class of wealthy Chinese. The top .05% wealthiest Chinese have investible funds of more than $2.7 trillion, and there is a rapidly growing class of billionaires and more than 800,000 millionaires. Plus there is a huge rising middle class looking to travel and enjoy life.
Of course, in addition to Mainland China there are the Chinese in Taiwan, and everywhere else such as Hong Kong, Singapore, and Indonesia.
A recent Merchants Bank report estimates that rich Chinese individuals — those with assets of more than 10 million yuan — have about 3.6 trillion yuan ($564 billion) invested overseas. No reliable numbers are available for total Chinese foreign investment or Chinese investment in the United States. The investors are largely staying under the radar to avoid publicity and possible adverse reactions, and there seems to be no means to track the investments and get an aggregate investment number.