Chinese cities might look like some of the most modern and urban developments of the world but they are all empty!
A news segment, '60 Minutes' by CBS News explores the grim housing scenario in China. The housing bubble has been called a "disaster waiting to happen" by the report.
In the report, correspondent Leslie Stahl interacts with many real estate moguls who explain the growing risk of the housing bubble. She visits the empty developments and explores the forlorn estates with the experts.
The CEO of China Vanke, Yu Liang, says that almost all the developers are deep in debt, which is leading them to abandon many projects. If the trend continues, the scenario could get ugly.
Another financial analyst, Gillem Tulloch, said that entering these urban developments felt more like 'walking into a forest of skyscrapers, all empty'.
Check out some scary satellite photos of the empty cities here.
Much of China's GDP is invested in infrastructure and urban development. In every two months of the past decade, the country has built infrastructure equivalent to the size of Rome. Investing in infrastructure made sense when growth was high in the country. But as growth slows down and with a real estate bubble around the corner, condition of these developments are looking grim, reports BBC News.
"We have spoken a lot about these ghost towns in Ireland and Spain recently [but China] is Ireland and Spain on steroids," Kevin Doran, a senior investment fund manager at Brown Shipley in the U.K., said to BBC.
However, some experts have argued otherwise. Professor Stephen Roach of Yale University believes that it is just a phase and it is 'the greatest urbanization story, the world has ever seen". According to him, these empty cities will soon turn into bustling metropolitan areas.
Check out the CBS "60 Minutes" coverage of the ghost towns below:
