Latest news with #QDII
Business Times
5 days ago
- Business
- Business Times
China will hike quota for investors buying overseas assets
[BEIJING] China will allow some local investors to put more of their money into overseas assets, a sign Beijing is opening up its financial market as the yuan steadies. Regulators will lift a cap on flows under the qualified domestic institutional investors (QDII) scheme, said Zhu Hexin, head of China's top currency regulator, at the Lujiazui Forum in Shanghai on Wednesday (Jun 18). The quota, which limits investors' ability to load up on assets such as Treasuries and overseas equities, has not been increased since May 2024. The move follows a period of relative calm in the value of the yuan against the US dollar, fuelled by growing questions about the greenback's place in the global trading system. That has given Beijing the breathing room to ease its tight control over capital flows – and instead shift focus back to a long-term ambition of spreading the use of the yuan overseas. 'Expanding QDII may be a step in the broader process of renminbi internationalisation and opening up,' said Lynn Song, chief economist for Greater China at ING Groep. 'There should be solid demand for this, especially given the interest-rate differential between China and many other markets.' China is also planning to explore and pilot yuan futures trading and establish a digital yuan operation centre, Pan Gongsheng, head of the central bank, said on Wednesday. The US dollar has tumbled almost 8 per cent against a basket of currencies this year, hit hard by a 'Sell America' trade and fears about US President Donald Trump's unpredictable trade policies. China's central bank has largely held its currency steady against the greenback, spreading pressure to the yuan's value against currencies such as the euro and the Korean won. The so-called QDII programme allows funds who meet certain conditions to invest in foreign securities with a prescribed quota. Beijing tightly controls the programme to manage capital outflows and ease pressure on the yuan. The current quota stands at US$167.79 billion. The onshore yuan was trading at around 7.186 against the US dollar on Wednesday, slightly higher on the day. BLOOMBERG
Bloomberg
5 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
China Will Hike Quota for Investors Buying Overseas Assets
China will allow some local investors to put more of their money into overseas assets, a sign Beijing is opening up its financial market as the yuan steadies. Regulators will lift a cap on flows under the qualified domestic institutional investors scheme, said Zhu Hexin, head of China's top currency regulator, at the Lujiazui Forum in Shanghai on Wednesday. The quota, which limits investors' ability to load up on assets like Treasuries and overseas equities, hasn't been increased since May 2024.
The Spinoff
11-06-2025
- Business
- The Spinoff
Golden visas bring in big bucks as one-percenters look to NZ
The government is celebrating a $25 million boost from wealthy migrants, but questions remain about the visa's wider economic impact, writes Catherine McGregor in today's extract from The Bulletin. Big names, big money Immigration minister Erica Stanford is hailing the revamped Active Investor Plus visa as a major success, reports The Post's Thomas Manch, with more than $25 million already transferred and around $1 billion worth of applications in the pipeline. Launched on April 1, the updated scheme lowered the investment threshold, removed the English language requirement, and slashed in-country time obligations. Applicants under the new 'growth' category need to invest a minimum of $5 million in higher-risk assets over three years and spend just 21 days in New Zealand during that time. 'It's been so successful, and the people are amazing,' said Stanford, claiming some applicants are tech co-founders of 'very big, well-known companies that you would probably use every day'. The majority of applications have come from the United States, followed by China, Hong Kong and Germany. Not all capital is created equal It's certainly a tidy sum of money, but will it meaningfully grow the economy? Writing in Newsroom, Brent Burmester, a business lecturer at the University of Auckland, says passive capital injections into funds or existing businesses rarely drive widespread economic transformation. 'Wanting residency and having the capital to secure it is not a measure or indicator of future entrepreneurial breakthrough,' he argues. Instead, Burmester supports prioritising migrants with ambition, skills and drive over those with simply a big chequebook. 'The research is very clear on this: such immigrants grow an economy like ours and give established Kiwis a reason to stay. They typically demand less and deliver more. Not because they are wealthy, but because they are not. Yet.' A residence visa without residents? Under the new rules, investors may spend as little as a week a year in New Zealand, raising concerns about their long-term contributions to the local business environment. If they're hardly ever here, it seems doubtful that they can engage meaningfully with the companies their money supports or with the communities they're theoretically helping grow. Immigration lawyer Nick Mason tells Morning Report the requirement 'does seem very minimal' but in his experience, golden visa holders spend a lot longer in-country than they have to. RNZ's Liu Chen also reports that potential Chinese applicants have found their way into the country blocked due to their inability to use China's Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor (QDII) scheme, which is virtually the only pathway for individuals from China to transfer capital overseas. One immigration lawyer told Chen that excluding QDII effectively shuts off the golden visa to most Chinese investors, despite the government claiming the programme is 'country neutral'. Parent Boost visa raises equity concerns While wealthy investors are being courted, many migrant families are reacting to a more personal policy change. The new Parent Boost visa, announced on Sunday, will allow parents of citizens and residents to stay in New Zealand for up to 10 years. Though widely welcomed, community leaders warn it is largely out of reach for the working-class migrants who need it. 'For them, the Parent Boost Visa is a promise they cannot afford to fulfill,' writes Vineeta Rao in Indian Newslink. Applicants must meet high financial thresholds – $160,000 in savings for a single applicant with no other income, or $250,000 for a couple – that skew the visa in favour of migrants from wealthier countries. The result is a tiered system, Rao writes, that effectively '[sidelines] many Indian families, despite their cultural and emotional capability to support their parents here'.
RNZ News
05-05-2025
- Business
- RNZ News
‘Golden visa' shutting out Chinese investors, legal experts say
Photo: RNZ Legal experts have been left perplexed by Immigration New Zealand's interpretation of regulations related to the investment visa pathway for Chinese nationals. The government upgraded the Active Investor Plus visa on 1 April to help encourage growth and make investing in New Zealand more attractive for overseas individuals. The updated information on Immigration New Zealand's website in April noted that two Chinese investment programmes - Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor (QDII) and Qualified Domestic Limited Partner (QDLP) - were "not considered acceptable methods of transfer to meet immigration requirements" under the visa. The Active Investor Plus visa was first introduced in 2022 by the Labour government, replacing the previous Investor 1 and 2 categories. Due to the visa's high investment threshold and English-language requirement, it did not attract a lot of interest, immigration advisors and lawyers said, adding that questions over the exclusion of the Chinese investment programmes had yet to materialise. After the April upgrade, the category attracted high interest from applicants around the world . Peter Luo Photo: Supplied However, licensed immigration advisor Peter Luo said interest from China quickly dried up after the government explicitly excluded the QDII programme from the upgraded "golden visa". "I have quite a number of clients who wanted to apply, but they can't anymore," Luo said. "Some have signed a contract with us, but we had to pause the process." QDII was introduced by the Chinese regulators in 2006 to allow individuals in China to invest in financial product markets overseas through approved domestic institutions such as commercial banks, security firms and trust companies. It aims to increase the proportion of mainland China's privately held assets abroad in a managed way, according to the government's foreign exchange agency. The QDLP programme is a separate investment scheme launched by Chinese authorities that has never been adopted by New Zealand. Luo said QDII was virtually the only pathway for individuals from China to transfer capital overseas. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment told RNZ that QDII and QDLP had been excluded from the investor visa when it was introduced in 2022. Stacey O'Dowd, border and funding immigration policy manager at MBIE, said the core objective of the Active Investor Plus policy settings was to seek active and ongoing investment to help grow the New Zealand economy. "Funds passively invested in New Zealand which are subject to obligations or restrictions would not align with this objective, as there is no certain potential of the funds remaining productively invested beyond an investor's investment period," O'Dowd said. However, Luo said he only became aware of the QDII programme's exclusion recently. Luo claimed the QDII programme complied with the new investor visa conditions, and its exclusion was "baseless". "If the government is genuinely interested in attracting Chinese money and talent, INZ should withdraw its improper interpretation and engage with financial institutions to develop a workable solution," Luo said. Arran Hunt Photo: Supplied Immigration lawyer Arran Hunt said the exclusion of the QDII pathway meant the Active Investor Plus visa was "shut off from almost all Chinese investors". Some countries restricted the amount of funds that someone could move out of the country, and the QDII programme provided an option that appeared to work with the former investment visa categories, he said. Hunt said Immigration New Zealand had not explained why funds transferred via the QDII programme were not acceptable. "We expect it is because the QDII/QDLP funds need to be returned to China at some point, which would make any investment in New Zealand temporary," he said. However, there was no guarantee that an investment under the new investor visa would remain in New Zealand after the investment term, he said. Repatriation of funds was more likely to happen if the funds had been sent via the QDII programme, he said. "This change would have an impact on applicants from China, as it removes the most common way to take money out of China lawfully," he said. "This removal will leave the only possible way out being through a place like Hong Kong but, even then, it won't be simple." Hunt said China did not allow unrestricted movement of funds out of the country, with such transfer constraints being outside of New Zealand's control. Harris Gu Photo: Screenshot / Queen City Law Harris Gu, an immigration lawyer who is also policy chair of the New Zealand Association for Migration and Investment, said the exclusion of QDII from the investor visa settings was unreasonable because immigration laws did not explicitly forbid it. "I believe there has perhaps been a misconception on the government's part in terms of exactly what QDII is and how it operates," Gu said. "Nevertheless, their statements are not above the actual law." Gu said the exclusion would negatively affect investment from Chinese institutions that might have ordinarily come through the QDII programme under the old Investor 1 and 2 visa categories. O'Dowd said New Zealand investment settings were, and would remain, "country neutral". "We welcome high quality and productive foreign investment from all investors, provided it meets our regulatory requirements," O'Dowd said. "Active Investor Plus settings have been designed to incentivise active investment so New Zealand benefits from investor capital, skills, experience and networks over the longer term." Immigration New Zealand received 45 applications for the Active Investor Plus visa under the new settings between 1 and 14 April. Of those applications, eight were from Hong Kong and five were from Chinese nationals, according to MBIE statistics. RNZ approached Immigration Minister Erica Stanford for comment but was told Immigration New Zealand, which falls under MBIE, oversaw such operational questions.
