Hainan-Sanya-Haikou Expat

What does Dubai have in common with Hainan Island, China?

Answer: China's infamous millionaire real estate speculators of Wenzhou. I was recently pointed to a juicy background story at India Times of global property speculation leading from Wenzhou across the globe to Dubai and then back to Hainan Island where just one month earlier, the Wenzhou gang descended upon this tropical island paradise in a well-timed frenzy of property speculation, even by fast-rising Chinese property market standards.

From the India Times Article:

Millionaires from the isolated coastal city of Wenzhou, a centre of Chinese private enterprise, have fanned out across China and overseas over the last decade in search of property that they buy, and often quickly resell at a profit.

They may collectively face about 1 billion yuan ($146.5 million) in losses as the Dubai real estate market contracts, the head of the Wenzhou SME Business Development and Promotion Association said on Wednesday.

This story broke back in December revealing that in fact it was Wenzhou native Hu Bin, chairman of Shanghai Zhong Zhou Group, who laid out $28 million to purchase one island of the World Islands project set for luxury development and now looking more like a desert mirage. Post Dubai crash, Wenzhou investors are looking for the bargains there once again. "Since the recession on real estate in Dubai, I've led three groups of investors to Dubai to investigate properties," said Chen Zhiyuan, the president of Wenzhou Chamber of Commerce in the United Arab Emirates. According to a February report in China Daily, "Wenzhou, China's private capital powerhouse in the southern province of Zhejiang, is among the richest areas in the country and the birthplace of self-made billionaires who are manufacturing clothes, shoes, and other small commodities like lighters."

Chart from a related article at Business Insider

In an effort to identify where else the Wenzhou investment groups may be targeting for their investment hoards, we dig deeper to find a recent yet poorly translated article at www.kinablog.com , where we find the following:

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