China's new rules could spark strategy change for Forest City

Kuala Lumpur

CHINA'S tighter enforcement of foreign exchange policies will make property sales much tougher for its developers operating abroad that bank heavily on Chinese buyers.

One such is Country Garden, part of the Malaysian Forest City project in Johor, and which is already perceived as a potential Chinese enclave given seven out of 10 buyers are from the mainland.

Property players say the silver lining in Beijing's FX clampdown is it forces a rethink towards drawing buyers of other nationalities to the contentious development south-west of Johor across from Singapore.

A consultant for the mega-development, KGV International Property Consultants executive director Samuel Tan described sales to date as "very good", as some 13,000 units of serviced apartments have been sold, or almost all that were launched in the first phase of the maiden island to be reclaimed. They…