Recently Yahoo News on-line reported the following:
Exodus of Wealthy Chinese Accelerates with End of Covid
Zero (2/2)
Bloomberg News
Wed, January 25, 2023 at 1:00 p.m. PST
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Searches and keyword mention of “emigration” on Wechat
almost quintupled on Dec 26 from a day earlier to 110.7 million, after China
downgraded Covid-19 to a lower threat disease class and announced that it would
scrap all quarantine measures.
As the wealthy look to invest abroad, private banks have been building their desks to deal with the flow of capital.
They have been hiring in Singapore to serve wealthy Chinese that are investing in the city state. The flood of money has prompted sky-rocketing prices for everything from mansions and golf memberships to luxury car sales in Singapore.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Julius Baer Group Ltd. are among banks that have staffed desks in other locations, such as the San Francisco Bay area and Zurich respectively, with Mandarin speakers, according to people familiar with the matter. A spokeswoman for Julius Baer confirmed that the bank has Mandarin speakers as part of its team in Switzerland serving Asia-Pacific wealthy clients. JPMorgan declined to comment.
Among those looking to leave is Dahua, whose family runs a pharmaceutical business in central China. This isn’t her first try, but she’s more hopeful she can get out now since it’s possible to travel. A previous attempt to obtain a US green card was thwarted when she returned to China before the pandemic and could no longer travel back to the US, failing to spend the required time there.
Dahua, who asked that only her first name be used, is now looking at a program in Canada that allows applicants to study there and ultimately acquire permanent residence after working for a few years.
A lot of her colleagues and friends have either emigrated or are actively exploring that option, she said, with many losing confidence in the country’s future.
“It’s time to reactivate my emigration plan now that we can travel abroad and it should be much easier to process these things than earlier when we still had the lockdowns,” she said.
China has strict capital controls. Citizens can convert only $50,000 worth of yuan into foreign currencies each year. But despite those restrictions, the reopening of travel is enough to fuel outflows with tourism alone — even if people don’t choose to stay away permanently.
“If several million people go out and travel this year, that may still amount to tens of billions of dollars of downward pressure on the foreign exchange reserves that China has,” said Chen Zhiwu, chair professor of finance at Hong Kong University.
Chen estimates that tourism outflows could hit $100 billion to $200 billion this year, which didn’t occur in the past three years due to Covid restrictions. The outflows should have “some depreciation pressure” on the yuan, but the central bank can still intervene to keep the currency at an overvalued level, he said.
Chinese families still face challenges in migrating. According to Iris Pang, chief economist for Greater China at ING Groep NV, economic weakness in popular destinations such as Europe and the US may affect the ability of some Chinese to find jobs in those regions. Policies around immigration are also tightening everywhere from Portugal to Malta.
According to one private banker, wealthy individuals told him the cost of moving money offshore has risen to 12 cents on the dollar late last year from 1 cent in the years before the pandemic, as the government clamped down on money transfers.
That isn’t stopping those who want to leave. Peter Luo, the principal consultant at Express Immigration, a New Zealand immigration advisory, said the requests from Chinese clients keep pouring in, with most coming from the business community. “The notable thing is that they are very urgent, with the request that applications are approved immediately if possible,” he said.
Translation
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12 月 26 日，微信上 “移民” 的搜索量和關鍵字提及量較一日前幾乎翻了五倍，達到
1.107 億，即是在中國將新冠病毒 降級為較低威脅的疾病等級，並宣布將取消所有檢疫措施之後。
隨著富人開始尋求海外投資，私人銀行一直在建設自己的服務台以應對資本流動。
他們一直在新加坡招聘，為在新加坡投資的中國富人服務。 在新加坡，從豪宅和高爾夫會員資格到豪華汽車銷售，大量資金流動促使一切價格飛漲。
據知情人士透露，摩根大通和瑞士寶盛集團等銀行分別在舊金山灣區和蘇黎世等其他地點設有員工辦公桌，員工會講普通話。
Julius Baer 的一位女發言人證實，該銀行在瑞士為亞太地區富裕客戶提供服務的團隊中有講普通話的人。 摩根大通拒絕置評。
想要離開的人中有 Dahua，他的家族在中國中部經營一家製藥企業。 這不是她第一次嘗試，但她更希望自己現在能出去，因為可以旅行了。 此前，她在疫情爆發前返回中國，之後未能再返回美國，故未能在美國渡過規定的時間，因此之前去獲得美國綠卡的嘗試受挫。
要求只使用她的名字的 Dahua 現在正在加拿大尋找一個項目，該項目允許申請人在加拿大留學, 並最終在工作幾年後獲得永久居留權。
她說，她的很多同事和朋友要么已經移民，要么正在積極探索這一選擇，許多人對這個國家的未來失去了信心。
她說： “現在我們可以出國旅行了，是時候重新啟動我的移民計劃了，處理這些事情應該比之前, 當我們仍然處於封鎖狀態時容易得多。”
中國有嚴格的資本管制。 公民每年只能將價值50,000美元的人民幣兌換成外幣。 但是，儘管有這些限制，僅僅旅遊業的重新開放就足以助長資金外流 - 即使人們不會選擇永久遠離。
香港大學金融學講座教授 Chen Zhiwu 說： “如果今年有幾百萬人外出旅遊，那對中國的外匯儲備可能仍有數百億美元的下行壓力。”
Chen 估計，今年旅游資金流出可能達到 1,000 億至 2,000 億美元，這在過去三年中由於新冠病毒的限制, 旅游資金流出沒有發生過。 他表示，資金外流應該會對人民幣造成 “一定的貶值壓力” ，但央行仍可以進行干預，使人民幣保持在高估水平。
中國家庭在移民方面仍然面臨挑戰。 ING Groep NV 大中華區首席經濟學家 Iris Pang 表示，歐洲和美國等熱門目的地的經濟疲軟可能會影響一些中國人在這些地區找到工作的能力。 從葡萄牙到馬耳他，各地的移民政策也在收緊。
據一位私人銀行家稱，有錢人告訴他，由於政府限制匯款，去年底將資金轉移到海外的成本已從病毒大流行前幾年的支付 1 美仙兌 1 美元,升至支付 12 美仙兌 1 美元。
這並不能阻止那些想離開的人。 新西蘭移民諮詢公司 Express Immigration 的首席顧問 Peter Luo 表示，中國客戶的申請不斷湧入，其中大部分來自商界。他說: “值得注意的是，他們非常着急，要求盡可能立即獲得申請批准” 。
So, China
has the world’s second-largest number of ultra rich. Globally some popular immigration
firms are seeing a growing urgency from Chinese clients seeking to migrate. Yet policies on immigration are tightening globally. China is tightening its outflow of capital but it seems
that such policies aren’t stopping the determination of the rich Chinese people
to leave the country.
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