THE asset management industry in China is set to expand five-fold to US$17 trillion by 2030, beating growth in other markets and benefiting local money managers, a latest report showed.

Assets managed by Chinese managers may overtake Britain’s US$3.8 trillion as early as 2019, according to a report by Casey Quirk released yesterday. The biggest winners will be domestic firms, with foreign institutions getting roughly 6 percent of the money pile, according to the report.

“China is the only large, multi-trillion dollar market that has seen net new flows in excess of 30 percent per year,” the report said.

Foreign firms including BlackRock Inc. and Fidelity International have been trying to tap the country’s growing asset management market.

The Chinese market was worth US$2.8 trillion in 2016, behind the United States at US$33.4 trillion and the United Kingdom’s US$3.8 trillion, the consulting unit of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd. said in the report.

Growing personal wealth and low returns on bank deposits will encourage Chinese investors to allocate more to asset managers, according to the report.

Casey Quirk expects the Chinese industry to attract US$8.5 trillion in new assets between now and 2030, accounting for almost half of net inflows to the global industry.

The industry’s share of national wealth in the world’s second-largest economy will rise to 10 percent by 2030 from 4 percent now, putting it on par with where the United States was in 1990, the report said.

Much of the growth will be driven by individuals in the “mass affluent” and high net-worth categories, alongside pension and insurance money, Casey Quirk said.

Investors will become more discriminating as the market matures, the report said.

(SD-Agencies)