A businessman sells a car park for $ 1 million
رجل أعمال يبيع موقف سيارة بمليون دولار
If anyone needed further evidence of Hong Kong’s sky-high real estate prices they found it this week with news that a car parking spot sold for almost $1 million.
The space went for HK$7.6 million ($970,000), making it the most expensive place to park an automobile in the city, and perhaps anywhere in the world. The seller was Johnny Cheung Shun-yee, a businessman with a reputation for flipping property. He made around HK$900 million last year in about nine months by buying and selling floors in an office building.
The car-parking spot is actually in the same building — The Center in Central, which also happens to be the priciest office tower in the world. For the cost of the parking space, you could buy a one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan.
“A lot of those owners in The Center are in finance or in other high-growth businesses,” said Stanley Poon, a managing director at Centaline Commercial. “To these tycoons, it’s not a significant purchase if you compare it to the value of the office floors they own.”
The jaw-dropping price is also another illustration of the gap in Hong Kong between the ultra rich and ordinary people. That income inequality has fueled violent protests that have rocked the city for months now and show no sign of stopping.
Hong Kong’s Gini coefficient was the most for any developed economy in 2016 at a 45-year high, and for all the luxury and glamour, one in five residents live below the poverty line.
source: bloomberg.com
باع رجل أعمال في هونج كونج موقفاً لركن سيارة، مقابل حوالي مليون دولار. ويقع موقف السيارة في «ذي سنتر»، خامس أطول ناطحات السحاب في المدينة، والذي تصدر عناوين الصحف قبل سنتين لدى بيعه، في مقابل مبلغ قياسي يقرب من 5 مليارات دولار، ليصبح تالياً أغلى مبنى مكتبي في العالم، وفق ما ذكرت «فرانس برس».
وتأتي عملية بيع موقف السيارات في وقت باتت التظاهرات المستمرة منذ أكثر من خمسة أشهر في هونج كونج تلقي بثقلها على اقتصاد هذه المنطقة شبه المستقلة، وخصوصاً على سوقها العقارية.
واضطرت الشركات العقارية، التي تراجعت أسهمها خلال الأشهر الأخيرة، إلى تقديم حسومات على مشاريع جديدة، وتقليص قيمة إيجارات المكاتب.
