Report: Chinese art posses long-term investment value

A report from Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business revealed on Monday a rebound in collector confidence for Chinese art pieces, supported by optimism towards the Chinese economy.

The report, namely the MM Chinese Art Indices, was unveiled by Mei Jianping, a finance professor at CKGSB. It said Chinese artworks possess long-term investment value and a certain degree of inflation resistance.

"Compared to impressionist and Western contemporary art prices, work by Chinese (both domestic and overseas) artists exhibited better market heat in the past two decades. A major factor supporting this trend is the global collector optimism towards the Chinese economy," Mei said.

"Despite subdued trading conditions in recent years due to the pandemic and economic adjustments, the spring auctions of 2024 have shown signs of collector confidence recovering indicated by a slowed downward trend in the market, signaling a positive outlook for the Chinese art market," he said.

The MM Chinese Art Indices was co-developed by Mei from CKGSB, Michael Moses, a retired professor at New York University, and Jiang Guolin, a retired researcher at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. It examines prices, sentiment and artist's liquidity.

Data for the indices is sourced from auction records of Sotheby's, Christie's, and Phillips in six locations including Beijing, Shanghai, Singapore, Paris, London and New York. The samples included works by over 400 Chinese artists from domestic and overseas, which were auctioned repeatedly from 1988 to the spring of 2024.

The MM Chinese Art Indices rose from 1 in early 2001 to 9.5 by the end of 2023, with a compound annual growth rate of 10.3 percent. Mei noted that this outperformed inflation and other asset indices.