Now the tide is about to turn again. "Inbound removals regain territory, especially from France and South Africa," she says.
Bernd Reitmeier is seeing the same trend occurring in the German expatriates community. The deputy delegate of the Delegation of German Industry and Commerce in Shanghai says German expats have not left China in such massive numbers compared to Koreans or Americans.
"While for example the Korean community in Shanghai shrank from 100,000 to 50,000 within only five months, the returnee ratio of Germans is estimated to be only 3 to 5 percent," Reitmeier says.
About 8,500 Germans live in Shanghai today - eight times more than when Reitmeier arrived 10 years ago.
"The Germans will be coming to China in great numbers," Reitmeier predicts.
German companies in China are more immune to the crisis than their American counterparts, as their focus is less on export and more on the local market.
And the Chinese market is still doing comparatively well.
Reitmeier believes China "in the long run will be the winner from this economic crisis".
For Clemens Helbock, founder and CEO of the expat job site ixpat.com, China is already the winner.
"Many foreigners realize that job perspectives in their home economies are far from bright while at the same time there is still growth in China," he says.
"And growth attracts workforce." On ixpat.com there were 30 percent more job offerings in March 2009 compared to the same period in the previous year.
In view of the global economic crisis, Helbock expects a swelling influx of what he calls "inpats".
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