Singapore-listed CapitaLand has reopened its Chinese shopping and its residential sales offices as the country appears to coming out of the coronavirus pandemic.
The firm said that it had been progressively reopening its residential sales offices since March and had seen sales top RMB1.3bn (£150m) – some 5.5 times the value achieved in January and February, when China was on lockdown as a result of Covid-19, combined.
The firm said a 288-home project, La Botanica, in Xi’an, had sold out in four days, raising some RMB405m.
Most of CapitaLand’s projects under construction have also resumed work, with the developer now focused on catching up with its annual sales and handover targets.
In retail, the group said that 80% of stores in its malls in China were now in operation with all four of the landlord’s shopping centres in Wuhan – where the coronavirus began – reopening on 2 April.
Some 95% of CapitaLand’s office tenants have also resumed operations and more than 65% of their employees have returned to work. About 80% of the tenants in CapitaLand’s business parks have also resumed operations, said the group.
Group chief executive Lee Chee Koon said: “Now that China is restarting its economy, we stand ready to resume business operations and support the country’s recovery. Let’s hope this improvement continues and that green shoots will similarly spring up around the world, soon.”
Fellow landlord Wanda said that the majority of its 325 Wanda Plazas were now reopened and operational. As of 22 March, only four remained closed, it said, all of which are within the Wuhan province.
The developer said that footfall had bounced back quickly with average customer flow reaching 83% of the levels recorded during the same period in 2019. Sales are rebounding more slowly, however, currently hovering at around 60% of the volume reached during the same period last year.
The group said it had “full confidence that all economic indicators of Wanda Plazas will soon return to levels seen before the pandemic,” and that it was “highly optimistic about the prospects of China’s bricks-and-mortar businesses”.
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