Investors told to change urban focus

[photopress:huang_buildings.jpg,full,alignright]Zheng Xiaoping, principal partner of BAZO Investment (Asia), China, told the 2nd Real Estate Investment World, an annual high-level business forum, that China’s enormous urbanization drive is providing huge opportunities as well as challenges for investors and developers.

Zheng Xiaoping said, ‘China is experiencing the largest urbanization process in human history. As a developing country, China has more investment opportunities in the developing phases than it does in existing buildings.’

According to an earlier forecast by the United Nations, between 16 to 22 million people will migrate from rural places to urban areas in China each year from now until 2020. The total urban population will rise to 300 million by that time which means an additional 6 billion square meters of housing will be needed.

Zheng noted that foreign investors should consider changing their focus in several ways such as from existing building acquisition to building development, from major cities to second-tier cities and from real estate projects to other sectors, such as land and infrastructure development.

However, there are challenges, too, especially for overseas investors, industry experts agreed. Those might include social and cultural differences, difficulty in sourcing and executing projects, excessively fast market development and policy changes by the regulator.
Source: Shanghai Daily