Top 500 Companies and Foreigners Have All Left, Shanghai’s Rents Have Plummeted!

China Observer
China Observer
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Published 2023-06-14
On June 5th, a real estate industry insider in Shanghai appeared on Fuxing Middle Road, pointing to the deserted buildings on both sides of the street, "This place used to be packed with foreigners. Now, there's not a single foreigner around, only Chinese. All the foreigners have left."
Following this, he brought up the rent situation in Shanghai. He said that in places like Mingyuan Century City, Jiali Garden, Huijing Garden, and Wutong Garden, the rent was usually tens of thousands per month, and the tenants were all foreigners. "These are the world's top 500 multinational companies. They're rich and spend company money. Now they're gone, and these houses are empty."
#shanghai #chinaeconomy #foreigners #chinaobserver
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All Comments (21)
  • @admiralbeez8143
    Starting in 2001 in my role as a global sales and procurement manager I have been to China five times for work, including to Beijing, Shenzhen, Shanghai and Hong Kong. I have always had successful and enjoyable trips to China, including my last visit to Hong Kong in 2018. But after China kidnapped Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig - two regular business people, just like me, my wife made me promise to never again step a foot onto Chinese territory. So, I have never returned, and instead I’ve been redirecting our procurement efforts to Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand - our category of goods can be bought at similar quality and cost as from China, without the political and economic risks. It takes some effort to get to these places from Canada when you tell your travel agent not to connect through Hong Kong or elsewhere in China, nor to use any China owned or affiliated airlines, including Cathay. But it can be done, from Vancouver, Canada I fly Air Canada (or Eva) to Taiwan, and from there to Singapore. I still sell to China, but I meet the customers outside of China, for example recently at a trade show in the US. China’s people are lovely, and wonderful to do business with, but if the communist regime sees fit to kidnap Canadians, I can’t be arrogant and say, it wouldn’t happen to me.
  • @shirleya.osgood
    There is no way unemployment is lower as the reports suggest. Companies are posting jobs and not hiring and layoffs are out of control.
  • @alphach1mp
    Let's make 1 thing clear, foreigners did not leave. They were all kicked out by the CCP during the pandemic.
  • @kalin6149
    Gosh maybe they got tired of the 2AM police barging in and asking for your paperwork. It's never at a good time. And with all the anti foreigner sentiment, it's surprising people didn't leave years sooner.
  • @teohyc
    If negative news like this can even get out of China, it means the situation is probably even worse
  • @Psylent
    Cheap rent & property is great. Let’s hope it drops a lot more so normal ppl can afford it.
  • @blackrebelz
    The guy at the beginning called foreigners "rich and arrogant" (財大氣粗), but the translation reads, "They're rich and spend company money." 😂
  • @fearhungerpride
    It's not a collapse; it's just a correction. A much needed one.
  • @anikalee9012
    Chinese influxes in SEA like Singapore and Thailand cause real estate price higher. Local Thais and Singaporean are now affected. They have to pay higher to get a house. And Chinese also buy and nominated many businesses in compete with the local. This is scary in both country.
  • @seekittycat
    Oh noooo low rent for local people to live in ohhhh noOOooo
  • @Allin7days
    The rule #1 for doing business: Be a community player.
  • @rock4600
    I used to live in beijing and used to travel to China frequently.. After all the recent Chinese government threats against Hong Kong, Taiwan and arrests of foreigners I won't even make a stop over in any Chinese territory.. Never, and the Chinese people can thank their own government for that.
  • @karlad4082
    The same is happening in America. Retailers are fleeing San Francisco and the hotels have stopped paying their loans 😳 This is a global economic collapse, and we’ll all go down equally 😭
  • @njeyamoorthi4876
    No company should entirely depend on the export market alone. One has to create his company for domestic, 80% and export, 20%...
  • @dlitowit
    As a foreigner in the finance field who first started coming to China in 2005, I can say that Hu Jintao knew how to make China attractive to foreigners while also keeping it a cohesive country, and those were the good years. He was intelligent. Xi was ok for a couple years and then he got greedy and it all went downhill. I left HK, rarely went into the mainland, and all my friends in finance moved to Singapore or back to US, London, Australia, etc. Xi is the one to blame.
  • @erikaweber_
    Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's no such thing as buying property as a foreigner in China. You can only lease it for like 30 years or so.