Chinese businessmen hit by Dubai property crunch

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(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-12-06 19:33

HANGZHOU: When many mega-constructions, including the world's tallest building Dubai Tower, kept on rising from the sands in the Middle East, Chinese investors' confidence had been sky high on Dubai property market as well.

But all seem to have become a passing memory, as the confidence was humbled by a debt crunch that pricked the property bubbles in the emirate.

"Investing in real estate was quite popular among Chinese businessmen in Dubai for quite a long time. No one expected property market would tumble: the property price rose only to about 20,000 to 30,000 yuan a square meter in the emirate favored by global investors," said Chen Zhiyuan, director of Wenzhou Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Dubai.

Dubai is the first emirate in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to allow foreigners to buy property. Although Dubai's economy was originally built on the oil industry, the emirate's main revenues are from tourism, property and financial services.

Global stock markets fluctuated after Dubai on November 25 said it was asking for a six-month reprieve on paying Dubai World's 59-billion-US-dollar debts as a first step to restructure the emirate's leading state-owned company.

"More than 100,000 Chinese are doing businesses or working as labors in Dubai and most businessmen bought property after having worked there for more than two years," Chen said.

Local property prices tripled or rose fourfold in ten years, said Wang Weisheng, board chairman of the Dubai-based Asia Business TV.

"Villa price was only priced at 8,000 yuan ($1,171) per square meter in 2001, but common apartment price had soared to 20,000 to 30,000 yuan a square meter before the crisis," Wang said.

Speculation in property actually is quite profitable before the bubbles burst, Wang said.

"It yielded money more quickly than traditional businesses and thus attracted increasing hot money," Wang said.

He said Chinese investors usually bought one or two apartments at first, then the profits drove them to join hands and purchase a whole floor or building.

Take Wenzhou investors for example, they usually nailed down investment at a dinner, about which project to invest and how much they would invest, Wang said.

Wenzhou, in east China's Zhejiang Province, is known for its emigrants who leave their native land to do business overseas, with a reputation for being enterprising to start restaurants, retail and wholesale businesses overseas.

Most investors believe the crunch in Dubai property sounded the alarm bell for China's property market.

"China's property market took off almost at the same time as Dubai's, but at a speed much higher than Dubai's in the past ten years," Chen said.

In many Chinese leading cities, common apartment prices have exceeded 30,000 yuan in core areas, Chen said.

Feng Fei, director of the Research Department of Industrial Economy under the Development Research Center of the State Council, said China should closely watch bubbles in property and stock markets amid current rich capital fluidity.

Despite losses in property investment, Chinese businessmen reported little impacts from Dubai debt woes in other sectors.

"The crisis was mainly caused by debt woes in mega-projects and exodus of foreign investment, hitting hard property and financial services. Import and export with with Dubai are not seriously affected," said Fang Xiaoqiang, general manager of Longfei Import and Export Company Limited based in Yiwu, Zhejiang Province.

Chen echoed Fang's opinion, saying that only those who borrowed hugely to speculate in property suffered great losses and most Chinese businessmen felt lucky as they only spared a part of capital on property investment and did not give up their main businesses.

Hu Bin, board chairman of Shanghai Zhongzhou International Group Company, invested 28 million US dollars to buy an artificial island in Dubai in 2007.

Construction of the island, with 1.2 billion yuan of investment, were scheduled to be finished in 2010, but have been suspended after the global financial crisis, Hu said.

"It's normal for businessmen to suffer crisis. The Dubai World debt crunch this time is not as devastating as the global financial crisis last year," Hu said.

"Despite a lot of uncertainties around, most Chinese investors are confident in Dubai's future and the recovery of its property market," Chen said.