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Strategies & Market Trends : Asia Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Liatris Spicata who wrote (5528)	8/16/1998 10:35:00 PM
From: B Tate	Respond to of 9980

Larry Most of the construction that I witnessed was NOT office space or even similar to Pudong. (your assessment of that area is correct, lots of vacant office space going for a song) Most of the construction I mentioned was for new apartments and low cost housing units. As I mentioned the majority of construction I witnessed was targeted at infrastructure projects. Obviously not all, as you were correct in pointing out. A portion of those cranes I viewed in Shanghai were for new "commercial" space I'm sure. These are not funded by the Shanghai Chinese but rather the speculators out of Taiwan and Hong Kong. From what I hear they spend cash to build and consider a pay off of 10 - 15 years as adequate. More like savings accounts for the future. Shanghai will not shrink in either of our lifetimes so long term the timing could be right from their perspective. More impressive than the cranes though were the 85K seat stadium on one side of the office building and the elevated on the other side. This area has been totally transformed in the last 6 months since I was there. Rightly or wrongly the Chinese are investing in themselves as I see it and this can only help them resist devaluation for the sake of maintaining a high employment level. regards bt