Forbidden City

When is a loan not a loan?

  • Published 17 Apr 2009

Official statistics show that Rmb 4,580bn was lent out in the first quarter of this year – that's over 90% of all loans extended last year and almost as much as the Rmb 5,000 lending target set for 2009. So where did all the money go?

It has been a good week for gargantuan China numbers. One of them came courtesy of 'Rich List' compiler Rupert Hoogewerf, a British citizen known to hundreds of millions of Chinese only by his local name, 'Hurun'. Hurun’s latest survey estimates that some 825,000 people in China – or one in every 1,700 – have personal wealth amounting to Rmb 10m ($1.46m, €1.1m, £983,000). Some 51,000 people have assets worth more than Rmb 100m, his survey found.

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China Confidential Funds, a new research service launched by FT China Confidential, is dedicated to illuminating the mainland fund industry. Our team of fund industry experts in Shanghai search out the interesting trends in fund performance, strategy, interactions with overseas funds, regulatory changes, distribution and management. We also use a proprietary system to track the emerging flows of Chinese money. Click here to find out more.

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