Beijing Plans $2.1B AI Park and More Asia Real Estate Headlines

The race to dominate the artificial intelligence industry leads today’s real estate headlines in the region as authorities in Beijing plan a RMB 13.8 billion AI-centred high tech park in China’s capital. Closer to the centre of the northern capital, Wang Jianlin’s mall machine took another hit this week as its credit rating receives another downgrade, and overall China’s developers bonds are ranked as the nation’s riskiest. Read on for all these stories and more.

RMB 13.8B AI Park Planned for Western Beijing

Beijing is planning to build a 13.8 billion yuan ($2.12 billion) artificial intelligence development park in the city’s west, the official Xinhua news agency reported, as China pushes ahead to fulfill its ambition to become a world leader in AI by 2025.

The AI park will house up to 400 enterprises and have an estimated annual output of 50 billion yuan, Xinhua said, citing a report from authorities in Beijing’s Mentougou district. Read more>>

Fitch Downgrades Wanda Credit Rating on Offshore Funding Worries

Fitch Ratings has downgraded Dalian Wanda Commercial Property two notches, blaming its inability to access offshore funding channels.

Fitch also maintained its ‘Rating Watch Negative’ to reflect the continued lack of definitive funding channels to boost Wanda’s offshore liquidity. Read more>>

$256M Deal for Macau’s Lan Kwai Fong Casino Closes

China Star Entertainment Ltd, a services provider in the Macau casino market, said in a Wednesday filing that it had completed the sale of the Lan Kwai Fong casino hotel property to local businessman Chan Meng Kam.

“The board is pleased to announce that the completion took place on January 3,” China Star reported in a filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Read more>>

Developer Bonds Ranked as China’s Riskiest in Analyst Survey

Bonds from China’s property developers face the biggest risk of default in the nation’s domestic debt market as the government’s funding curbs strain their finances, according to a survey of analysts and traders.

Ten out of 15 respondents in a Bloomberg survey late December see some payment failures among developers this year. Most predict yield spreads on corporate bonds that surged to four-year highs in 2017 to climb more. Read more>>

Ascott Signs Deals to Manage 9 More China Properties

The Ascott has sealed contracts to manage nine properties with over 2,000 units in China, putting the service residence business unit of CapitaLand on track to achieving its global target portfolio of 80,000 units in 2018, two years ahead of schedule.

With these new properties, Ascott said on Thursday that it has also made inroads into new cities including Harbin and Zhuhai, and widened its presence in Chongqing, Foshan, Shanghai and Wuxi. Read more>>

China Land Sales Rose 8% in 2017

Land sales increased in Chinese cities last year as the government moved to cool the market with higher supply, according to the China Index Academy, a property research organization.

Land sales in 300 Chinese cities totaled 950.36 million square meters in 2017, up 8 percent from 2016, while sales of land for residential projects reached 354.33 million square meters, an increase of 24 percent year on year. Read more>>

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