Jakarta – The news of the failure to pay the giant Chinese developer Country Garden make a splash in these two weeks. How could it not be, at nearly the same time, another giant developer, namely Evergrande, officially announced its bankruptcy with a fantastic debt value of Rp. 5,000 trillion.
It is feared that Country Garden’s failure to pay will affect various projects of this developer outside China.
Sure enough, one of his projects located in Malaysia is now on the verge of going bankrupt after being reported by the local media as a ghost town for a long time.
Quoting Insider, Friday (25/8/2023), built by Country Garden, Forest City can be considered a very ambitious project. Its area reaches 1,740 hectares, or four times the size of the city-state of Monaco. About 700,000 people were initially expected to live in the complex.
But in 2019, only about 500 people lived there, according to a 2019 Foreign Policy report.
An expert who declined to be named for security reasons said the area’s population had grown to several thousand people but still less than 5% of the expected population.
Country Garden declined to comment on the number of occupants in the development.
Country Garden claims that they have sold more than 20,000 residential units by 2022. It is unclear exactly how many units have been built in Forest City.
Prices under construction have soared in recent years. In 2017, apartment prices in Forest City start at 740,864 Malaysian ringgit.
Currently, the condominium apartments being developed are being sold for 5 million Malaysian Ringgit. For comparison, the average selling price of properties in Johor Bahru, where Forest City is located, is 619,633 Malaysian ringgit.
Quoting Chanel News Asia, although the property appears to be well-maintained by staff wearing Forest City uniforms, there is hardly any construction work going on on the land reserved for development.
Chee from Singapore, who lives in Ataraxia Park, told CNA that he was very pessimistic that Forest City would be completed.
“What I am worried about is the impact on my property value. I bought the unit for around RM 700,000 but now it is only (about) RM 400,000,” added Ms Chee, who bought the apartment as an investment.
“I’m worried that with this news of a potential default on (Country Garden bonds), the Malaysian developer will halt construction of the rest of the project and we will see the value drop further in the coming months.”
Construction of the Forest City project started in 2015, with the aim of developing four artificial islands with a total area of 20 sq km.
Since then, the construction has only reached half of an artificial island which is equivalent to 15 percent of the total area of the Forest City project being developed Country Garden.
(dna/zlf)
2023-08-25 02:33:30
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