KUALA LUMPUR: Hong Kong-listed Country Garden Holdings Co Ltd, the company that develops Forest City project that carries a gross development value of US$100 billion (RM444 billion) along the Straits of Johor, is here to stay for long-term investment.
Country Garden Group Malaysia regional president Jason Fu Jinling pointed out that the company’s investment in Malaysia was its own investment initiative.
According to Fu, the Chinese government did not provide incentives for property developers to expand overseas.
“They do give us support, in terms of ensuring that our workers do not face any issues [during their employment here] but they do not give us any [economic] incentives at all,” he said during a panel discussion at the economic and business outlook conference 2017 organised by the Real Estate and Housing Developers’ Association Malaysia yesterday.
Fu said that the group sees Malaysia as a long-term investment destination as economic growth in its homeland China has been slowing down.
“If we put our money in China markets [at present] we can actually get higher returns [in the short term] but we are taking a long-term view [in Malaysia].
“That is because China’s economy has seen [rapid] growth in the last 30 years, but it is slowing down from double-digit growth figures to about 6% to 7% [and] it [may] get slower in the future,” he commented.
Aside from Forest City, Country Garden has three other developments in Malaysia, namely Central Park and Danga Bay, which like Forest City are also in Johor, and Diamond City in Semenyih, Selangor.
Fu said that most of its developments, with the exception of Danga Bay, have attracted more local interest than from China.
“Close to 50% of our Danga Bay investors are from China, the rest are Malaysians and Singaporeans, as for the Diamond City project, 90% of the buyers were Malaysians and only about 50 units were sold to China investors.
“As for Central Park which is launching next month, its price range is from RM200,000 to RM600,000, so foreigners are not allowed to purchase properties at those prices.
“Last year we did focus a lot on China investors for Forest City, but this year we are going to open up more sale galleries in countries such as Indonesia, Thailand and the US,” he said.