Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Singapore is the third popular place for rich mainland Chinese


Mainland Chinese buyers, as you may know, are the top non-Singaporean buyers of private property in Singapore in 2011. Chinese buy more than a quarter of properties bought by foreigners and Singapore Permanent Residents. For many, they are investors to park their money in Singapore property to hedge against inflation or forced out of China property market due to Chinese property cooling measures. But they may as well be buying to park themselves to in Singapore in the near future. According to MyPaper Singapore is the third most population for Chinese millionaires planning to emigrate out of China:

"More than half of China's super rich are considering emigrating, said the report by Bank of China and Hurun Report, which publishes luxury magazines and runs research institute.

The joint study, published last Saturday, found that 46 percent of Chinese with assets worth more than 10 million yuan (2 million Singapore Dollars) were considering moving abroad. Another 14 percent had already begun the process."

The top destination for emigration for Chinese are United States (40%), Canada (37%), Singapore (14%), Europe (11%), Hong Kong (5%) and United Kingdom (2%).  And these people are not just talking, nearly a third of them "have already invested overseas (in many cases for Chinese invested = bought a property) in many cases to enable them to emigrate. Some countries offer residency to foreigners who are prepared to invest large sums of money."

Singapore is one of those countries which has a permanent residency scheme for foreigners named GIP - Global Investor Programme:

"Singapore permanent residence can be bought if you are willing to invest a small fortune in the country and support your funds with proven entrepreneurial skills. This particular scheme officially known as Global Investor Programme (GIP Scheme) is often referred to as Investor Scheme and requires you to invest at lease 2.5 million dollars in order to qualify under the scheme."[2]

But you cannot enjoy this scheme by simply buying a high end condominium unit. You need to either invest 2.5 million dollars+ to a new start up or to extend an existing business or you invest that amount to a GIP approved fund.

Chinese rich are afraid of government officers and security of their assets in communist ruled China and it seems like they are also worried about the society at large and their kids future. China now has 960,000 people worth more than 2 million Singapore Dollars which is up nearly 10% compared to a year ago (and probably will be down as fast if the Chinese property bubble burst).

[1] - Singapore No.3 Destination for wealthiest Chinese, My Paper November 2, 2011
[2] - Singapore PR Investor Scheme

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