Australia is a hugely popular place for Chinese investors.
They're investing heavily into real estate and infrastructure projects.
Just take a look around here, it's not hard to find Chinese money flowing into Australia.
From major ports to landmark buildings and large sections of Australia’s farmlands,
Chinese investors are buying at a rapid rate.
Here in Sydney, this building which is home to the Australian stock exchange was recently purchased.
The buyer?
A billionaire from Hong Kong known to be one of China's largest toy manufacturers.
Then there’s Australia’s massive ports.
A group of funds backed by Chinese investors agreed to buy the nation’s busiest port,
located in Melbourne, for more than $7 billion.
Australia’s agriculture sector has also caught the eyes of Chinese investors.
The biggest importers of Australian wine used to be the U.S. and the U.K. just a few years ago.
Today, it's China.
And now some of China's biggest winemakers are buying up large vineyards
with the intent of selling the wine that's produced here directly into China.
In 2016, Australian wine exports to China surged 40%.
And wine only scratches the surface.
China's investment in Australia's agricultural sector has gone from
$300 million to more than a billion dollars in just one year.
The shift is being driven by China’s booming middle class which has high demand
for things like produce, meats, dairy and minerals.
One specific example, baby formula.
After outbreaks in China from tainted infant formula, the product has been flying off the shelves in Australia.
Why?
Millions of Chinese trust “Made in Australia” much more.
And consider this, more than 17 million babies were born in China just last year.
Some Chinese tourists are snatching up as much formula as they can
to sell it for a premium back on the Mainland.
Many stores now have a limit on the amount you can buy.
Perhaps no sector in Australia though, is being more impacted than housing.
Home prices in Sydney have nearly doubled since the global financial crisis.
In Melbourne, they’re up a 84%.
Which could be nice if you bought a home before then,
but for first time home buyers, it’s practically devastating.
And that’s caused what’s now known as Australia's housing affordability crisis.
In New South Wales, the Australian state where Sydney is located in,
foreign buyers are acquiring a quarter of new property supply.
And Chinese buyers account for 87% of foreign demand.
After China, it’s buyers from New Zealand, accounting for just 1.6%.
And it makes sense.
Buying an entire home here is often more affordable
than buying an apartment in some of China’s biggest cities.
The median apartment price for Beijing is more than $800,000.
While Sydney is under $620,000.
But, of course, neither China nor Australia is particularly pleased about this trend.
And both governments have been implementing higher taxes in an effort to slow it down.
Not only has Chinese money surged home prices in Australia,
but in some cases there’s even been concern over national security.
Australia’s federal government recently blocked the sale of the nation’s largest electric grid,
after a Chinese and Hong Kong holdings company attempted to purchase a controlling stake.
The government bowed to pressure from opponents of the deal,
who said they were giving away control of their power grid to another country.
The outflow of cash from China has prompted Chinese authorities to announce new regulations
for investing money outside of the country.
New South Wales has doubled taxes on foreign buyers to 8% of the purchase price.
But here’s the thing.
Government initiatives have hardly slowed down demand.
Why?
Well, there's a lot of millionaires in China.
And their wealth is growing at a much faster pace than the total value of Australia’s housing market.
The combined wealth of all of China’s millionaires was only slightly more
than the entire value of Australia’s housing market back in 2011.
But, today, China’s millionaires are worth twice as much. And that gap is only expected to continue.
Meaning China’s massive surge in wealth makes it only more likely that
China will continue buying up assets in Australia.