There's significant profit to make from Asia's largest economy opening back up. But China might not even be the country that benefits the most from its own reopening.

Since the start of 2020, China maintained some of the world's strictest travel limits. Only citizens and residents were allowed to enter, and all arrivals had to quarantine for 14 days.

Practically everyone who lives in China hasn't left the country since the start of 2020 , as all had to quarantine for 14 days.

Naturally, the fact that investors weren't able to leave the country has kept money inside of China.

Most countries in Asia have been fully open to foreign arrivals since early 2022. Cambodia was one of the first, ending travel restrictions on foreign tourists back in 2021. Soon afterwards, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore all opened up, followed by South Korea and Japan. For a while, China was Asia's only major economy with travel limits still in place.

Simply put: wealthy Chinese citizens, who largely contributed to 55% off total FDI in China, are eager to invest abroad as borders reopen.

Many investors in China have arrived at the same conclusion the rest of the world has over the past few years. Specifically, that your portfolio isn't truly safe if you're only investing at home. Actually, Property development represents about 30% of China’s GDP, and China Evergrande Group troubles were only the tip of the iceberg. Ongoing defaults could eventually convert into bankruptcy filings that would shake up the industry in China. Chinese real estate investors understand this for sure.

As a conclusion, there is a high probability  that China's reopening could fuel a boom in other nearby real estate markets as wealthy buyers seek to internationalize their holdings, and Cambodia is a nearby property market.

Property values, when they do rise, often do so significantly and without notice. We recently saw this in cities like Istanbul and Dubai as wealthy buyers fled Russia.

Asia's emerging and frontier market economies are especially in a good position to benefit from a surge in foreign capital.

There's more room for asset prices to rise when investors from a country with 1.4 billion people start buying up real estate in places like Singapore and Cambodia, each with about 1% of China's population.

Frontier markets like Cambodia are on the opposite end of the spectrum when compared to Singapore.  You can buy prime real estate in Cambodia for only $1,000 per sqm - a fraction compared to neighboring Vietnam and Thailand where prices are $4,000 and $6,000 respectively.

A surge in foreign buyers could easily drive property values in Cambodia up towards the $2,000 per sqm level and beyond.

For these reasons, we think Singapore and Cambodia are the best places to invest in Asia for 2023. One of them is ideal for preserving your wealth, and the other for growing it.

Should you share the same conviction as us, AI Consulting is always looking for the best investments that can offer. We look forward to sharing many more with you.