Economics
China’s Hidden Capital Flight Surges to Record High
- That flight exceeded the elevated 2015 and 2016 levels
- Recorded resident outflows were the smallest in 10 years
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China’s hidden capital flight surged to a record high in the first half of this year, suggesting that residents wanting to move money abroad are using unrecorded transactions to evade tight capital controls.
That’s according to the Washington-based Institute of International Finance, which said the “net errors & omissions” in China’s balance of payments, widely seen as an indicator of concealed capital flight, rose to a record high of $131 billion in the first six months of this year. That was larger than the average $80 billion recorded during the same period in 2015 and 2016, when outflow pressures intensified, it said.