China's rich seek safety in gold, emigration

 中國千萬富翁熱衷投資黃金和移民

Chinese multimillionaires are backing off domestic property market investments in favor of gold and emigration, says a report released by China Merchants Bank and Bain & Company on Wednesday.

The demand for real estate trusts, private funds, gold and private equity (PE) has increased significantly among China's rich during the past two years as rising inflation, a bumpy stock market and new real estate regulations have made alternative investments less attractive. By the end of last year, total net investment in gold had surged 80 percent from a year earlier. The outstanding volume of PE products also rose by 30 percent during this period. Traditional investments such as cash and deposits, stocks, real estate and mutual funds saw a major decline over the last two years. Such assets now only account for 70 percent of total investment, down from 80 percent in early 2009.

The report also found increasing interest in investment immigration, a form of temporary or permanent residence that some countries, such as the U.S. and Canada, give to foreign citizens when they invest a large sum of money and create jobs, particularly in areas with high unemployment. Nearly 60 percent of all HNWIs surveyed had successfully acquired an investment immigration visa or were considering pursuing one. About 27 percent of China's billionaires - those with investable assets exceeding 100 million yuan - had emigrated.

According to the report, the number of Chinese high net worth individuals (HNWI) - those with at least 10 million yuan in investable assets - reached 500,000 in 2010 and is expected to top 590,000 this year. South China's Guangdong province has the largest number of HNWIs, about 70,000 or 15 percent of all HNWIs in China. Shanghai and Beijing took second and third with 47,000 and 44,000 multi-millionaires respectively.

昨日，招商銀行和貝恩管理顧問公司聯合發布了《2011中國私人財富報告》，顯示千萬富翁投資國內房地產熱情下降，投資黃金和移民的意愿強烈。

就富人的投資方向而言，近兩年，受到高通脹、股市震蕩和新樓市調控政策的影響，地產信托、陽光私募、黃金投資、私募股權投資等其他類別投資方式在富人中呈現井噴式增長。2009年初，以現金與存款、股票、房地產和基金為代表的傳統投資類別占比高達80%左右，至2011年，四類資產占比下降至70%左右。2010年年末黃金凈投資額較2009年增長80%左右。2010年私募股權投資類產品的年末余額較2009年增速達到30%。

投資移民迅速增長這一趨勢在調研中也得到印證。近60%接受調研的千萬富翁已經完成投資移民或有相關考慮。而億萬富翁（可投資資產規模在1億元人民幣以上）中，約27%已經完成了投資移民。

該報告顯示，2010年可投資資產一千萬人民幣以上的中國高凈值人士數量達50萬人，預計2011年，該人群數量將達59萬人。其中廣東省的千萬富翁最多，約7萬人，占全國千萬富翁的15%，上海和北京分列2、3位，人數約為4.7萬人和4.4萬人。