The developer of the Forest City project in Johor claims that sales at the massive development located on four artificial islands remains stable despite China’s restrictions on money outflows, according to an article from the Property Report.
Valued at RM442 billion (USD100 billion), the large-scale project spanning 14 sq km is being jointly developed by China’s Country Gardens Holdings and Kumpulan Prasarana Rakyat Johor.
“Very few buyers actually told us they have difficulty paying for the properties,” said Country Garden Chief Strategy Officer Yu Runze in an interview with The Star last week.
In fact, nearly 17,000 units in Forest City have been sold mostly to Chinese as of April 2017.
Moreover, Country Gardens’ Vice President Zhu Jianmin told the South China Morning Post two months ago that only around five percent of the buyers were considering to cancel their purchases due to Beijing’s capital controls.
Nonetheless, Yu disclosed that they had closed down their sales galleries in China due to the wishes of the central government.
“In China, for a period of time, we have stopped [sales and marketing] because we cannot go against the Chinese government’s tightening [monetary] policies in order to preserve China’s depleting foreign reserves.”
“We cannot ask the people in China to buy properties because this will be going against the government policies.”
As such, the developer plans to market Forest City to other countries by opening over 10 sales galleries in different parts of the globe. This is despite the fact that about 70 percent of the project’s buyers are Chinese.
“We are seeking other target markets and this year, we are opening or planning to open sales galleries in Southeast Asia and East Asian markets in Taipei and Tokyo. We are also seeking new markets in the Middle East like Dubai.”
In March, Country Gardens’ VP offered to return the down payments of buyers impacted by China’s restriction of money outflows. He also promised to waive the penalties for those who cancel their transactions due this issue.
Image sourced from Property Report
Radin Ghazali, Content Writer at PropertyGuru, edited this story. To contact her about this or other stories email radin@propertyguru.com.my
For more information on new top homes, check out PropertyGuru’s New Property Launches and Project Reviews.
