With domestic profits narrowing and production capacity expanding, China’s firms are continuing to widen their overseas footprints in search of new, more lucrative markets. In this series, we examine China Inc.’s next phase of “going global” and the complex, challenging international environment its companies have chosen to enter. Chinese national Steve Xie has been doing business overseas for years. His latest venture, a new warehouse in Egypt, will supply electric vehicles and auto parts to the African and Middle Eastern markets.
But these days, Xie has noticed other Chinese entrepreneurs tend to have one topic on their minds: acquiring overseas residency and citizenship.
“Nowadays, the talk is no longer about whether a whole family should move abroad, but about how overseas passports and long-term residency can provide practical advantages when doing business in different countries,” he said.
For wealthy Chinese, the motivation for holding a foreign passport or residence permit is shifting: once a personal lifestyle choice, now a major business decision as domestic firms
accelerate their global expansion.
Entrepreneurs are looking to gain overseas residency and citizenship rights to facilitate their activities in target markets. Local documentation can make it easier to register companies, open bank accounts, sign contracts and unlock other opportunities.
With China’s
property downturn making it harder for middle-class families to liquidate their assets and move abroad, business leaders and high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) are becoming the main driver of the Chinese migration market, observers said.
Chinese businesses are increasingly
looking outwards for growth as they react to sluggish demand and intense competition at home. China’s total outbound foreign direct investment reached US$192.2 billion in 2024, up 8.4 per cent year on year, according to a report released by the Ministry of Commerce in September.
“The government is currently strongly encouraging Chinese enterprises to go global,” said George Dong, a migration and investment consultant based in Shenzhen. “To mitigate
associated tax and policy risks, it even encourages companies to ‘establish deep roots abroad’, which means more people need an emigration plan.”
