'I can't get my money out': Billionaire investor Mark Mobius says China is restricting flows of capital out of the country

Carla Mozée
Fri, March 3, 2023 

Richard Brian/Reuters

Emerging markets investing veteran Mark Mobius says China is restricting capital outflows.


He told Fox Business' "Mornings with Maria' that he couldn't pull investment funds from his account in Shanghai.


Mobius said he's been unable to get an explanation about the "crazy" restriction.

Mark Mobius, a pioneer in emerging markets investing, said China is restricting investment outflows from the country, a move that would be taking place as the world's second-largest economy is trying to shake off pressure from COVID-19 lockdowns.

"I'm personally affected because I have an account with HSBC in Shanghai. I can't get my money out. The government is restricting the flow of money out of the country," Mobius said on Thursday on the Fox Business show "Mornings with Maria". "So I would be very, very careful investing in China," the founder of Mobius Capital Partners said.

Mobius, who has spent decades traveling the world searching for investment opportunities, said he hasn't been able to get an explanation about why he's running into the restrictions in China.

"It's just amazing. They're putting all kinds of barriers," he said. "They don't say, 'No, you can't get your money out,' but they say, 'Give us all the records from 20 years of how you've made this money,' and so forth. It's crazy."

Hong Kong, on the other hand, "seems to be a little more open," he said. The previous executive chairman of Templeton Emerging Markets Group said he's been able to get his money "in and out" of the financial center.

Mobius's warning came days before China's President Xi Jinping was expected to cement his third term at a key government meeting starting this weekend. China late last year abruptly began lifting long-standing COVID lockdown measures and economists worldwide are expecting a recovery process to ignite a resurgence in activity in services and manufacturing. Mobius said the reopening play is resulting in commodity prices starting to move higher.

But the current government is operating "in a completely different direction" than China's former market-oriented leader Deng Xiaoping, Mobius said.

India is a place that investors should consider, he said.

"You've got a billion people, they can do the same thing that the Chinese do. They can do the same kind of manufacturing and so forth," Mobius said.

"I'm now in Brazil, and Brazil, you've got 250 million-plus people. Very good people, open society. Hey, why not come here? It's another alternative."

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