After Asia’s biggest economy has been a net recipient of investment for more than two decades, China is beginning to send its money offshore, starting with individuals picking up investment and self-use residential properties, and continuing as developers snapped up prime development sites and insurers and sovereign wealth funds purchased prime assets and strategic property portfolios, Savills said.

“Chinese individuals have long been subject to stringent capital controls, yet as the economy grows and integrates with the rest of the world due to Renminbi internationalisation gaining momentum, capital flight from Chinese nationals has become increasingly common. Much of this money finds its way into the property markets, the favoured investment product of many Chinese,” it said.

“Chinese investors have now moved on to other markets where, although they account for a relatively small portion of buyers, their numbers are rising rapidly,” said James Macdonald, head of Savills Research, China.

Key investors at the moment are insurance companies; sovereign wealth funds and developers, the Savills report noted.

For example, insurance companies have RMB7.7 trillion assets under management with potentially up to 10 per cent able to be invested in property. Ping’an Insurance was the first Chinese insurance company to invest in overseas property markets with the acquisition of Lloyds Building in London for $392 million .

China’s sovereign wealth funds, for example, have RMB7.4 trillion of AuM.

CIC and SAFE, both ranked in the top five SWFs in the world, have been particularly active. CIC has bought into large industrial and warehouse portfolios in Brazil, Australia and Japan as well as an equity stake in Songbird Estates, the majority owner of Canary Wharf in London’s eastern financial district.

The top ten developers in China generated RMB487.4 billion in revenue, selling more than 46 million square meters in the first six months of the year.