Managing The Dragon

Zara, the Spanish retailer owned by Inditex, opened their first Beijing store in The Place in the spring of this year.  The foreigners in Beijing familiar with the brand eagerly awaited the opening and after a short period of time, local consumers flooded the new store.  In the last month, Zara has pre leased space […]

Although it is less of a popular topic now than it was 12 months ago, any discussion about the Chinese real estate market eventually seems to end with a debate over the existence of a housing bubble.  Those who think it exists tend to focus on Shanghai and the key Guangzhou cities of Shenzhen and […]

Geoff Dyer, in a recent Financial Times article, highlighted a statement from Qiu Baoxing, China’s somewhat outspoken vice-minister for construction, in which Qiu expressed disgust with the thoughtless destruction of historically significant buildings that is occurring in many of China’s cities. Qiu Baoxing has established himself in previous years as being a very prominent Chinese […]