Country Garden: Closure of Forest City sales galleries in China not because of capital outflow controls

By Shawn Ng / TheEdgeProperty.com | March 10, 2017 6:53 PM MYT
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PETALING JAYA (March 10): Hong Kong-listed Country Garden Holdings Co Ltd has denied that the closure of Forest City’s sales galleries in China was due to the government’s capital control policy.

In a statement today in response to a report by South China Morning Post on the closure of the sales galleries in China, Country Garden Pacificview Sdn Bhd chief of strategy Yu Runze said the closure is temporary and in line with a shift in the company’s sales and marketing efforts which began early this year.

Country Garden Pacificview is the master developer of Forest City, a RM444 billion mega development in Johor. The project, which spans 14 sq km of land on four artificial islands, is a joint-venture development between Country Garden Holdings and Esplanade Danga 88 Sdn Bhd, a Johor state-owned associate of Kumpulan Prasarana Rakyat Johor. Most of its residential units sold so far have been to China buyers.

“It is not a knee-jerk reaction to the Chinese government’s policy implementation. With the continued opening up of the Chinese economy and the globalisation of Chinese companies, there is an increased demand for cross-border trade settlement in China’s yuan currency. We believe the Chinese government will approach this matter [capital controls] in a fair and pragmatic manner that will benefit all,” said Yu.

He added that the company initially targeted buyers from mainland China because of Country Garden’s strong reputation in China but the company has “always planned to sell beyond China”.

“We have chosen to bring those plans [to sell beyond China] forward this year. Country Garden will be taking a holistic approach to our sales and marketing initiatives, and looks to present an overview of our projects in China and beyond,” he said. This includes its mixed-used development in Hainan and Forest City.

“This will also allow us to sell to foreigners. As such, we had to close our centres to refurbish our sales galleries, upgrade our marketing materials and retrain our sales professionals,” he explained.

Yu envisaged the Forest City project to be one that will attract buyers from around the world, and hence the company is promoting Forest City to prospective buyers from Southeast Asia, Japan, South Korea, India, the Middle East, Europe, and the US.

Meanwhile, in a reaction to the news on the closure of the sales galleries, real estate agents who spoke to TheEdgeproperty.com said there will be fewer Chinese buyers for the Forest City development going forward.

Tiram Realty principal Lim Ah Leck, who is currently helping Country Garden market Forest City and Country Garden Danga Bay, said the project may be affected as about 95% of Forest City’s buyers are from China.

“The construction progress and sales of the unsold units in Forest City are expected to slow down while the units that were sold prior to this may not be affected,” he said.

Lim added that other Chinese developers in Johor, such as R&F Properties Co Ltd and Shanghai state government linked-Greenland Group, and Malaysian developers will be less affected as they rely less on Chinese buyers compared with Forest City.

Hartamas Realty (OUG) real estate agent Tey Ren Zian, who provides real estate services to Chinese property buyers, believes the impact of the capital flow controls on Chinese buyers would be temporary as developers will adjust their strategies to deal with the issue.

Oh oh!

when collapse?

Nearlee

Big wave of investments coming from China guys, all will be fine don't worry

kena cap liao...

Hunting for 6 months dy still no good buy....bearbearwong got any dead chicken mou?

come seremban court tomorrow ..i be there...

So far lazy la..got what kang Tao there

Hahahah yes I conlanfirm I no money

If rental yield is a lead indicator of property price, price drop is almost inevitable.

So it is gonna crash this night?
Ayam is amused
Btw cash ready to buy any house with cash

Please pm to meet bbw at seremban court tomorrow.

Only selected area rental drop due to increase supply however most of this area capital appreciate more than 100% already..ask any young professional, most of them feel that 400 psf for new developement in secondary location like old klang road is super bargain already

Appreciated over 100% and is super bargain?

Many condo in old klang road , sentul , Taman desa selling less than 300psf 10 years ago..similar condo now transacted more than 600 psf..last time rental 2k now around 1.8-2.2k

Price doubled in 10 years is about 7.2% p.a compounded. If 2011 to 2014 bull run is excluded, annualized increment would be lower than 7.2%, which is consistent with inflation rate.

Is duplex any good if wanna buy condo???
Also is it a good time to buy in kl???

So do agreed that buying property can hedging against inflation?

diu ur condo at midfields drop like mother also cant recognize... negro area

can pm Manutdgiggs to confirm

U talk what shit ..midfield 1 developer is less than 300k , around 280psf ..

Now subsale transacted 450psf -500 psf

Hahhaha