Increasingly affluent Chinese are encouraging developers to focus on shopping centres
Big and small domestic and overseas property players are moving faster to take a share of the mainland's growing retail property industry in first and second-tier cities as increasingly affluent consumers flock to the shopping centres.
Property consultants said that with the mainland economy's robust growth, mainland residents had increased buying power which benefited retail businesses and lured more investors towards the retail property sector.
Investors would either purely invest in retail centres or develop a property complex with a focus in the retail sector, they said. Others were newcomers to the market.
GMS International, a shopping centre owner and developer based in Carlsbad, California, is ready for a concerted push in the mainland.
William Gerrity, the chairman and chief executive of the company, said GMS had already committed to a number of retail projects in the mainland since it set up its Hong Kong office early last year.
