The largest ‘ghost’ city in China

In the city center of Ordos, there is a large statue of Genghis Khan in front of Genghis Khan Plaza.

However, this vast and majestic picture is missing one character – humans.

Ordos – China’s largest ghost city.

Most of the new buildings built here are uninhabited or unfinished.

The story begins 20 years ago, when coal mining in Inner Mongolia boomed.

Local farmers raced to sell land to mining companies and got rich quickly.

However, only 10 years later, Ordos became a `ghost` city.

Western financial experts are always concerned about the possibility of the real estate bubble bursting in China.

Local officials in this country appear to be increasingly dependent on money raised from selling land to investors.

Therefore, the Beijing government has heeded warnings from outside and is taking drastic steps to curb speculative home buying in the past two years.

This optimistic attitude can be clearly seen in a couple choosing to buy an apartment at a vast unfinished construction site.

Chinese people have only been allowed to freely buy and sell real estate for about 25 years.

However, now people have many other worries.

In China, there are black capital markets that specialize in providing loans to private businesses that cannot borrow money from state banks.

The financial institution that Mr. Li deposited his money into usually invested in real estate and paid him interest every three months, at an interest rate of about 40% per year.

This story has become very familiar in China when many famous tycoons have to appear in court for huge financial frauds.

Now, it appears that at least half of Mr. Li’s money is gone.

Close-up of the desolate image of Ordos

Ha Thu (according to BBC)