Small Caps launches Chinese website SmallCaps.cn covering ASX stock market news

Small Caps is now live with a new Chinese-friendly version of its website in a bid to break the language barriers inhibiting a large demographic of investors from accessing ASX-related news and data.

Effective this week, all content on Australia’s number one site for ASX-listed small cap news and information will be translated into the simplified Chinese language on smallcaps.cn.

All content is manually translated to ensure accuracy.

This means all news and feature articles going forward, plus a range of investor tools such as top stocks, ASX announcements, volume stocks, market data, sector trackers, upcoming IPOs and company stock summaries will now be accessible for Chinese-speaking investors.

Chinese investment in Australia

China is the fifth largest foreign direct investor in Australia and accounts for 4.1% of the nation’s total foreign direct investment (FDI).

According to the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), Chinese investors have directed a total of $64 billion into Australian assets in the past decade.

In the last few years, investment has broadened from mainly mining to include sectors of infrastructure, services and agriculture, DFAT reported.

Chinese investors or companies often become significant shareholders in ASX-listed companies. A recent example of an ASX-listed small cap company receiving Chinese backing includes lithium chemical producer Yibin Tianyi Lithium Industry Co’s $14.1 million investment in lithium explorer AVZ Minerals (ASX: AVZ) late last year.

According to KPMG’s report Demystifying Chinese Investment in Australia: April 2019, Chinese investment in Australia totalled US$6.2 billion (A$8.2 billion) in 2018.

While global foreign direct investment in 2018 declined by 19% to US$1.2 trillion, Chinese global outbound direct investment actually grew by 4.2% within the same period to reach US$129.8 billion.

The consulting firm also said a Chinese Investors in Australia survey revealed Chinese executives see Australia as a “relatively attractive place to invest with an improving political climate” and there has been a “slight increase in their sense of feeling welcome”.

In addition, census data shows the most common language spoken in Australia after English is the Chinese dialect of Mandarin, with around 700,000 people declaring they spoke the language at home.

Breaking the language barrier for ASX-listed companies

An independent study conducted by Small Caps found the language barrier to be a major challenge for many wealthy investors from China seeking to invest in Australian companies.

Due to this barrier many Australian listed companies are missing out on potential Chinese based investment.

By having Small Caps’ content accessible in Chinese, the world’s most commonly spoken language, the doors have opened for ASX-listed companies looking to attract the often far wealthier Chinese investor and conversely for Chinese speaking investors to be informed on the Australian market.

Chinese version of Small Caps

To visit the Chinese version of Small Caps: click here.