China’s once enthusiastic property investors are turning their attention to luxury watches as a better store of value in the face of slowing economic growth and President Xi Jinping’s intensifying campaign against housing speculation.
Multiple high-end watch resellers told the Financial Times that business had taken off in recent months as wealthy individuals stopped buying additional homes and instead spent their extra cash on luxury timepieces such as Rolex and Patek Philippe.
The shopping spree, said experts, has contributed to a 40 per cent surge in China’s imports of Swiss watches in the first 10 months of this year even as the broader economy cooled off.