{"id":122663,"date":"2023-12-19T10:19:32","date_gmt":"2023-12-19T10:19:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uklevitrasupport.com\/?p=122663"},"modified":"2023-12-19T10:19:32","modified_gmt":"2023-12-19T10:19:32","slug":"china-economic-meltdown-warning-as-billionaires-pull-cash-out-of-regime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uklevitrasupport.com\/world-news\/china-economic-meltdown-warning-as-billionaires-pull-cash-out-of-regime\/","title":{"rendered":"China economic meltdown warning as billionaires pull cash out of regime"},"content":{"rendered":"

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With evidence mounting that China\u2019s billionaires are scrambling to pull their money out of the country, a UK-based tax expert has said the country is paying the price for its \u201ctotalitarian\u201d approach. And Bob Lyddon warned the world\u2019s second-largest economy is going into \u201creverse gear\u201d as Western companies begin to \u201cdisinvest\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Lyddon was commenting at the end of a year in which 13,500 high-net-worth individuals are expected to leave China, according to immigration consultancy Henley & Partners. In the first half of 2023, the country – population 1.4 billion – was hit by a balance of payments shortfall of \u00a315.4 billion ($19.5billion), used by economists to calculate what is known as capital flight – although the figure is likely to be much higher.<\/p>\n

Paris-based bank Natixis estimates that even before the pandemic, roughly \u00a3118 billion ($150billion) was pulled out of China every year as a result of tourists taking their cash out of the country. Mr Lyddon told Express.co.uk: \u201cCapital flight is an indicator of extreme mistrust in both economic prospects, personal\/economic freedom, and protection under the law.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo-one could surely have deluded themselves that any private person or business enjoys protection under the Chinese legal system, given that China is a totalitarian state. Any liberalisation has existed at the whim of the Communist regime and, as we have seen under Xi, liberalisation can go into reverse gear.\u201d<\/p>\n

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That in turn meant personal and economic freedoms were \u201cnot guaranteed\u201d, Mr Lyddon, founder of Lyddon Consulting Services, explained.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cYou are not free to operate as you please within the confines of the law, and within a framework where new laws would have to be passed through a transparent and democratic process in order to reduce the scope of those freedoms. Current \u2018freedoms\u2019 are actually a temporary licence from the regime and one that can be withdrawn without notice and without due process.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued: \u201cWhich leaves us with the economic model and its prospects. Firstly, real estate has been a disproportionate contributor to China\u2019s apparent prosperity. Now the bottom has fallen out of that market. Secondly, Western companies that invested heavily in China because it was cheap are discovering that there is such a thing as political risk: legal system risks, ability to transfer money out and so on.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a result, they had started to \u201cdisinvest\u201d, Mr Lyddon pointed out. He said: \u201cWe have there two of the major motors of China\u2019s economic growth since 1990 going into reverse gear, in parallel with de-liberalisation.<\/p>\n

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