Tread carefully when investing in India and China

The re-emergence of India and China from their long economic slumber appears to offer investors the prospect of easy profits, but the lesson of history is to tread carefully in these countries, says Max King.

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Investors have welcomed Modi's reforms
(Image credit: Credit: SULUPRESS.DE / Marc Vorwerk / Alamy Stock Photo)

The re-emergence of India and China from their long economic slumber appears to offer investors the prospect of easy profits, but the lesson of history is to tread carefully in these countries. It was only during the late 1970s that China started to reopen its doors and reform its economy, a process that accelerated in the 1990s. India belatedly followed, though the pace has picked up since the election of Narendra Modi as prime minister in 2014. By 2016, India was estimated to have added more to global GDP than China, whose trend rate of growth India has overtaken.

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Max King
Investment Writer

Max has an Economics degree from the University of Cambridge and is a chartered accountant. He worked at Investec Asset Management for 12 years, managing multi-asset funds investing in internally and externally managed funds, including investment trusts. This included a fund of investment trusts which grew to £120m+. Max has managed ten investment trusts (winning many awards) and sat on the boards of three trusts – two directorships are still active.

After 39 years in financial services, including 30 as a professional fund manager, Max took semi-retirement in 2017. Max has been a MoneyWeek columnist since 2016 writing about investment funds and more generally on markets online, plus occasional opinion pieces. He also writes for the Investment Trust Handbook each year and has contributed to The Daily Telegraph and other publications. See here for details of current investments held by Max.