Chinese holdings in the UK have seen revenues soar in the past two years, deflecting concerns that the “golden era” of China investing in Britain may be drawing to a close.
Despite a slowdown in outward investment from China to the UK — partly stemming from concerns over Brexit and Beijing’s strict clampdown on capital controls — figures show that Chinese-owned companies in Britain have enjoyed triple-digit growth, according to research by Grant Thornton, a UK-based professional services firm.
The best-performing 30 companies — which had a combined turnover of £9.8bn and employ about 20,000 people in the UK — expanded revenues by an average 174 per cent in 2015 against the previous year, according to the Grant Thornton data. Among these, privately-owned Chinese companies outperformed their state-owned counterparts, reporting a 210 per cent increase in revenues against 146 per cent.