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The 12-square-mile initiative has become a symbol of excess in the global real estate sector, causing huge losses for the country!
What was once dreamed of as a R$570 billion luxury megaproject , intended to be a “dream paradise” for the Chinese middle class, is today known as a ghost town. Located at Malasia and idealized by the giant Country Garden , the enterprise Forest city promises a futuristic and sustainable city on four artificial islands, with 700 thousand apartments facing the sea Straits of Johor , near Singapore, according to infomoney. However, a decade later, this ambitious project is mostly inhabited by maintenance workers, with empty streets and almost deserted housing towers.
The obstacles that challenged the construction of Forest City
The story of Forest City began in 2014, when trillions of dollars in investments flooded the Chinese real estate sector. Seeing an opportunity to expand internationally, Country Garden invested heavily in building a self-sustainable city outside of China. But in the early years, the company encountered problems: environmental concerns raised by Singapore, And China's financial restrictions on real estate investment abroad, interrupted the work for months.
Despite this, the project moved forward, and the first phase was completed with 26 apartments and some basic infrastructure. However, the concept of “build it and they will come” ended up not applying. Today Forest city It is a place full of inactive towers, while most of the apartments remain unoccupied. Country Garden , one of China's largest real estate developers, is now facing a huge financial challenge, having defaulted on its debts.
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Malaysia seeks to attract new investors
To avoid Forest city become a true “white elephant” in the global real estate sector, the Malaysian government has been making efforts to revitalize the project, proposing tax exemptions for investors and transforming the city into a special financial zone. Recently, the government eliminated taxes for family offices of large international investors, in an attempt to reactivate the flow of people and companies in the region.
While these initiatives have shown some hope, the actual impact is still limited. Michael Grove , Sasaki landscape architect who was hired to make the project vision more feasible, comments that “the company bet on an outdated construction model without taking into account the real market demand”. Country Garden's quick decisions, made to leverage the housing boom, ignore fundamental factors such as accessibility and integration with local needs .
Life in a luxury “ghost town”
Anyone who visits Forest City today will see a curious city: rows of tall buildings with their lights off, empty squares and only a few shopkeepers and maintenance workers walking around. The city has already served as the setting for reality shows and a temporary technology school organized by a cryptocurrency investor, but even so, the environment resembles an abandoned city.
The prospect of a new life in Forest City attracts some buyers. This is the case of Su Mu, who exchanged the peaceful Xangai for the peaceful atmosphere of Forest City.”Prices here are not as high as in China”, he explains. However, the lack of residents is evident. For many investors, the dream of a “Malaysian paradise” still seems distant, while Forest City remains a huge, silent monument to the Chinese property boom.
The future of Forest City remains uncertain, with Country Garden promises to continue construction depending on demand and financial conditions that allow them. For now, the city remains a reminder of the challenges and ambitions that have transformed the global real estate market in recent years.
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