China Vanke taps UK real estate market
- By Tom Cunliffe
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E-mail China.org.cn, February 5, 2015
Vanke won't invest in Turkey or Spain, as even though it might be very profitable, the risks are too huge. Wang explained: "This is the company's strategy. Vanke is not an opportunist company seeking quick profits, but one that studies and learns how to survive in a mature housing market."
So far, Vanke has housing projects in America and Singapore. "The housing projects in America are being sold now, and have had a good market response."
Wang said that Vanke has 60 million customers, including 10 million house buyers and 50 million clients using Vanke's services.
When Wang Shi gave his talk at the Business Asia Forum, his ideas about the environmental impact of big companies came to the fore, perhaps because of his love of the outdoors, having twice climbed Mt Everest amongst other conquests.
He talked about climate change, and how he feels the planet getting warmer, especially during his outdoor trips around seven continents. This made him think about what the environmental footprint of his company was.
So, Wang Shi decided to visit the Beijing office of Greenpeace, much to the surprise of the head of Greenpeace, as China's huge companies usually avoid all contact with them.
After this, Vanke started making "green buildings," and invested in the research and development of more globally sustainable operational methods.
Wang Shi recalled the importance of the 2009 climate change conference in Copenhagen, when then Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao committed to a 25% reduction in carbon density by 2020.
This forced China's mainstream media to change their position and advocate environmental protection. Before this, they argued that as China was a developing country with a huge population it needed rapid GDP growth so imposing emission limits would be unfair.
After 2009, Vanke initiated the first of many top-level green projects. Wang Shi asks: "as we are all human beings, how [do we] take responsibility for the earth?"
Wang Shi also brought up "APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) Blue", the infamous occasion when Beijing's leaders did all they could to make sure the skies were clean (made blue) for this summit, including measures such as controlling traffic and shutting down offices and schools for a week.
However, taking a longer view, Wang Shi stated that the real gain at "APEC Blue" was the breakthrough deal struck between America and China to cut China's carbon omissions by 26-28 percent by 2025.
Wang explained how Al Gore, former Vice President of the US, came to Beijing during APEC Summit and personally sought a one-on-one meeting with him. He was surprised that Gore knew so much about him -- even about his family experiences during the Cultural Revolution -- Wang thinks that Gore could see the potential for a carbon emissions reduction deal between China and America and so focused on him.
Wang also joked about how his plans to climb Mt Everest five times came to a halt when an 80 year- old Japanese man climbed Mt Everest. Wang decided that at 59, his title of "the oldest Chinese man to climb Mt Everest" was enough. He said he has recently enjoyed scaling "academic mountains" more than physical mountains.
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