China’s New Limits on Money Outflows Hit a Would-Be Paradise
In a Chinese-language statement sent this month to the Reuters news agency
and reviewed by The New York Times, Country Garden said it decided to temporarily close its international property sales centers in mainland China for repositioning and upgrading "in order to better meet the existing foreign exchange policies and regulations." A Country Garden spokeswoman said the closure of the sales centers was "not a knee-jerk reaction" to the policy and reflected a shift to selling internationally.
Building homes in overseas markets like Hong Kong, Malaysia, Australia or New York City
and marketing them to investment-minded buyers back home has become a cottage industry for China’s larger property developers, who also promote the strategy as a way to help export China’s industrial overcapacity.
Last year, Rafael Liu and his father were in the showroom of a Country Garden development in China’s
eastern Jiangsu province when they learned about the Forest City project in Malaysia.
But recently, the developer told Mr. Liu he could not make payments in China any more,
and instead gave him details for accounts in Malaysia or Hong Kong to use.
By NEIL GOUGH and CAO LIMARCH 24, 2017
HONG KONG — China’s intensifying efforts to keep money from leaving the country
have cast doubt over big Hollywood deals and other marquee investments.
Country Garden, the Chinese developer building Forest City in Malaysia, has also been affected.
