Agile buys Hainan plot rights in resorts push

Agile Property Holdings, a Guangdong developer of large-scale residential projects, has bought the rights to build on 12 plots in Hainan province for about one billion yuan in its first move to expand into the resorts business.

Agile said it intended to develop the sites in the Qing Shui Wan district into a high-end resort area targeting global tourists.

'This not only marks an important step for the company to tap into the Hainan market but also represents our first attempt to develop resort projects,' Agile chairman Chen Zhuolin said.

According to the China National Tourism Administration, the mainland attracted 124 million tourists last year, bringing in revenue of US$33.5 billion. The country was the fourth-largest tourist destination in the world, it added.

Agile said the Hainan sites had a total area of 4.5 million square metres and an estimated gross floor area of 2.96 million sqmetres.

About 550,000 sqmetres of the gross floor area would be for hotel development, 560,000 sqmetres for residential and 1.85 million sqmetres for a mix of commercial and residential purposes, it said.

The sites were about 40 minutes from Sanya city and Sanya airport and had a 12km coastline facing the southeast, Agile said.

The company plans to begin construction of infrastructure facilities, hotel and resort apartments this year.

It did not disclose the estimated investment on the project or how it planned to fund the sites and the development costs.

After the acquisition, Agile's land bank will increase to about 19.96 million sqmetres, including a site for which it obtained land-use right certificates and has a stake in.

The company earlier bought a site in Nanjing for about 1.5 billion yuan, expanding its business outside Guangdong.