Capital Still Flowing Out

FT: China’s imports from Hong Kong up record 243%

Imports from Hong Kong were up 242.6 per cent year on year in May according to calculations based on statistics from the General Administration of Customs, writes Hudson Lockett.

“It’s been very high for a number of months but it keeps climbing up,” Julian Evans-Pritchard, China economist with Capital Economics, told the Financial Times. He estimated the growth in Hong Kong imports last month was the fastest rate on record based on customs data going back to 1994.

“Obviously that’s not underlying demand,” Evans-Pritchard said. “I think it probably has more to do with capital flows than anything else.”

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