A 23-minute listen.

Eric Moffett is fund manager at T Rowe Price and runs the Asia Opportunities Fund. In a wide-ranging discussion with Andy Brown, he talks through investment opportunities in Asia, whether Chinese growth scaremongering should be listened to, how he sifts for ‘gold’ amid the ‘rocks’, and what invariable macro machination is disturbing his sleep.

Broadly, considering half the world’s population resides in Asia, the engine of global growth is moving east, powered by a growing middle class with income to spend. Eric Moffett, a Princeton and Harvard alum, believes competition with the West is only going to intensify, seeing improving service and product quality that pits the region on a global stage.

China is a clearly important investment market. In recent years investors have fretted on GDP prints of 6%, but as Moffett points out: “even at these rates, last year GDP grew by the equivalent to the size of the entire Spanish economy. Bear in mind that 15-20 years ago they needed to create 20m jobs a year just to keep folks employed, but now the labour force is shrinking by a few million jobs per year, so 6% is fine – the labour market is tight. Policymakers in Beijing are relaxed because employment is the key.”

Eric points out that Stock picking there “is like panning for gold – you have to sift through a lot of rocks and a lot of fool’s gold”. But he adds that China’s A-Share market is “very deep” and because a lot of trading activity is driven by retail investors “chasing momentum”, this creates “tremendous inefficiencies” and therefore fantastic investment opportunities.

Also in the interview are Moffett’s thoughts to the US China trade war, which new growth drivers are taking over, and other areas of the Asian market he goes “hunting”.