Cross-border investment still ‘robust’ despite China’s growing controls: CICC

Beijing’s heightened scrutiny of overseas portfolio investment and tax practices has yet to significantly weaken mainland investors’ demand for legitimate cross-border investments, according to China International Capital Corporation (CICC).

The Beijing-headquartered investment bank is still seeing “robust” demand from its domestic clients, though the long-term effects of the policy tightening will need to be closely monitored, said Qiao Bo, head of investment products and solutions and a managing director at CICC, at an event in Hong Kong on Thursday.

“Global diversification becomes essential to lower overall portfolio volatility by including overseas assets,” Qiao added.

While the campaign has sparked some concern in Hong Kong, CICC expressed optimism about the city’s fund development prospects and its open-ended fund company structure.

“We have strong confidence in CICC’s asset management scale and business, expecting double-digit annual growth. This is based on our long-term positive view of Chinese managers going global and cross-border capital flows between the two markets,” said Qingchuan Liu, the firm’s head of asset custody services and also a managing director.