The 3rd Annual Real Estate Investment Trust Conference held in Beijing concluded successfully on 12 July 2006, where more than 200 participants from China as well as the Asia Pacific region assembled to cross the frontiers in real estate financing.

While China is taking pre-emptive steps to “cool” its overheating economy by curtailing bank borrowing and foreign investments into real estate projects, the pace of real estate projects and investments has not been adversely affected.

Regionally, we see a growing trend by investors looking into the 2nd and 3rd tier cities as investors see greater upside potential that can be realised away from the 1st tier cities. Elsewhere around the region, we see new city centres and mega city projects coming up, driven by global outsourcing.

There are still no stopping to financial innovations even as traditional sources of capital are being restricted in China. The recent launch of another offshore China REIT by Capitaland and a successful CMBS transaction led by Citigroup and Macquarie Bank are a case in point.

The 4th Annual Real Estate Structured Finance & Investment Asia Pacific 2007 will open up a whole new dimension for developers, asset owners and investors in China seeking new opportunities, projects and funding alternatives.

The conference will discuss innovations in real estate financing and aims to provide a good understanding of differing level of risks inherent in various structures by different group of investors and how these innovative structures will fit in with current legislation and regulatory framework in China.

“ Although until now, the real estate sector in Asia has lagged somewhat behind the structured finance sector in terms of innovation, we can expect rapid changes in the property and economic cycles to force real estate developers and traditional fund managers to look into the structured finance world for ideas to enhance risk and reward profiles.”
(Professor Moorad Choudhry, Leading Academician and Investment Banking Practitioner)