China on the rise!

[Monseratto]

This is interrsting as well.....
China's ghost towns: New satellite pictures show massive skyscraper cities which are STILL completely empty | Mail Online

They build it but nobody came...

China's ghost towns and phantom malls

As growth slows, China's huge investment in infrastructure is looking ever harder to sustain, leaving a string of ambitious projects - towns, shopping malls and even a theme park - empty and forlorn.

"We have spoken a lot about these ghost towns in Ireland and Spain recently [but China] is Ireland and Spain on steroids," says Kevin Doran, a senior investment fund manager at Brown Shipley in the UK.

Investment in infrastructure accounts for much of China's GDP - the country is said to have built the equivalent of Rome every two months in the past decade. And with such a large pool of labour, it is harder to put the brakes on when growth slows and supply outstrips demand.

"You have got seven to eight million people entering the workforce in China every single year, so you have to give them something to do in order to retain the legitimacy of the government," says Doran.

"Maybe 10 or 15 years ago they were doing things that made sense - roads, rail, power stations etc - but they have now got to the point where it's investment for investment's sake."

So which are the most striking of these white elephants?



New South China Mall, Dongguang, Guangdong



The distinction of being the world's biggest ghost mall, or emptiest shopping centre, may belong to this vast complex on the outskirts of Dongguang, a city of 10 million.

You may think the mall would be booming, with a population of that size, but the vast majority of its 1,500 stores have been empty since it was finished in 2005.

It has been hurt by poor transport infrastructure. As one blogger puts it, "unfortunately it was built in the middle of nowhere".

When Australian broadcaster SBS visited, they found a solitary toyshop owner who waits days at a time to sell a toy.

It is not as though the developers did not try. They threw in a canal, windmills and replicas of the Campanile from St Mark's Square in Venice and the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. The mall's website says it is "bound to be a miracle of commercial history".

"It's a building where you can see that there was some activity earlier - though very little - but it's like a ghost town," writes Netherlands-based blogger Mathilde Teuben, who visited two years ago.

"The very few shops that are there are deserted of customers. It was also funny to see some of the promotional posters for the mall which mostly depicted happy Caucasian children."

Wonderland Amusement Park, Nankou Town, Changping



The Disneyesque castle and medieval ramparts of this theme park north of Beijing, conceived nearly 20 years ago, lie abandoned. Local farmers grow crops among the empty buildings.

In the mid-1990s, developers had promised to build the largest amusement park in Asia, but the project got mothballed over a land rights dispute.

The site does in fact attract visitors, according to locals quoted by Chinese media, but hardly the sort the developers had in mind - they are drawing students, photographers and artists from Beijing, apparently, in search of a "ruin culture".

Thames Town, Shanghai



Photographers who visit this imitation English town generally come not to capture decay but newlyweds, posing in front of mock-Tudor buildings and red phone boxes.

The Shanghai suburb boasts a market square, a castle, a neo-gothic church, cobbled streets, a pub, a chip shop, Georgian-style houses and statues of well-known English figures, such as Winston Churchill, James Bond and Harry Potter.

As a backdrop, Thames Town is a hit with the wedding industry, but that is about it.

"The city is a virtual ghost town, with empty shops and unused roads," according to an article in Business Insider.

Yet perhaps not all is lost. Apartments have reportedly been sold, to buyers who want them as investments and second homes.

The proof of the developers' pudding may lie in news that the construction of another mock English town is being planned near Beijing.

"Four miles of polluted rivers running through 1,000 acres of blighted semi-rural land will be restored and landscaped into scenic standards becoming of the English countryside," a Chinese official told the Daily Telegraph.

[Ry_Tower]

This is interrsting as well.....
China's ghost towns: New satellite pictures show massive skyscraper cities which are STILL completely empty | Mail Online

Slowdown kasi. Pero sila pa din nga pinaka-mataas economic growth rate. If totoo yung sinasabi ng lalaki dyan, bakit nasa $114 na brent?

[niky]

So... when it bursts... who wants to own an entire building in China? Buy it for less than half its original, non-inflated value... then rent it out for pennies on the dollar to farmers.

You're supposed to sell, then build. China, you is doing it wrong.

[uls]

those ghost cities aren't caused by economic slowdown

it's overbuilding

to sustain economic growth the Chinese govt keeps coming up with infrastructure projects

kahit di kailangan they keep building

"You have got seven to eight million people entering the workforce in China every single year, so you have to give them something to do in order to retain the legitimacy of the government," says Doran.

"Maybe 10 or 15 years ago they were doing things that made sense - roads, rail, power stations etc - but they have now got to the point where it's investment for investment's sake."

the govt has to maintain growth rate otherwise there will be social unrest

they have to create jobs... keep people working

[niky]

On-paper growth, ika-nga... not actual.

They've been guilty of this for a long time. Over the past few years, dapat inalis yung mga Chinese malls at the top of the top ten biggest malls list... they're undersold and mostly empty. MOA and SM City talaga ang dapat sa top spots.

[timrev]

bakit ganun SM will still expand and build malls in china? meron na atang 2 sm malls sa china...

[Monseratto]

Benta nila sa INC yung mga ghost town...

[vinj]

You're supposed to sell, then build. China, you is doing it wrong.

Just like the way they're doing it wrong in the international relations department among others.

[Bin Diesel]

Benta nila sa INC yung mga ghost town...

yan din naisip ko e. bwenas nanaman INC dyan pag sakali.

[rangeles]

bakit ganun SM will still expand and build malls in china? meron na atang 2 sm malls sa china...

Magaling ang feng shui ni Henry Sy kung saan maglalagay ng mall compared sa government planners?!?