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China: Time For Investors To Embrace Turning Point – Ninety One
Amanda Cheesley
3 November 2025
Although emerging market equities have been outperforming developed ones since the start of the year, Chinese equities portfolio manager Wenchang Ma at even fallen below that of developed markets. This structural shift has elevated emerging markets into a higher-quality, more resilient asset class. For asset allocators still underweight, the case for reassessment is compelling. A selective, long-term approach For pension plans, endowments, and other long-horizon investors, Ma believes that the opportunity lies in selective allocation. Targeted exposure to areas such as innovation, decarbonisation, and healthcare offers growth drivers less accessible in developed markets. “At the same time, adding emerging market exposure can help balance portfolios still heavily tilted towards domestic and developed-market assets,” he said. “With greater resilience and a broader opportunity set than in the past, China and its emerging market peers can now play a more meaningful role in building diversified, forward-looking portfolios.” Ma is not alone in his views. A number of wealth managers have come out recently in favour of emerging markets and Asia this year, for instance UK-based Aberdeen Investments, Paris-based Amundi, Carmignac and Indosuez, as well as GIB Asset Management and Franklin Templeton. While China faces many structural challenges over the next five years, Aberdeen takes comfort from China’s new five-year plan to accelerate the green transition, after it wrapped up its fourth plenum meeting of the Communist Party of China. See more here and here,
China and emerging markets are not without risks. Geopolitical frictions, demographic challenges, and uneven policy execution remain. But these are increasingly balanced by structural reforms, stronger corporate governance, and growing sectoral depth.