Devastated by a banking collapse, Iceland welcomed a Chinese real estate tycoon’s plan to buy a remote, treeless tract of wilderness for a resort. Then critics raised questions and the nation had second thoughts.
Was this cover for Beijing to gain a strategic foothold? A way to gain access to a deepwater harbor or fresh water from a glacier-fed river? And should a foreigner be allowed to buy the equivalent of 0.3 percent of Iceland’s territory?
Developer Huang Nubo (黃怒波) defended his project yesterday, saying it would simply be a high-end resort and that it would preserve the local environment and Icelandic culture.
Huang, an avid mountain climber, rejected suggestions by critics that the project might be a covert attempt by Beijing to establish a presence. He said the site in Iceland’s northeast is slated to be one of a string of exclusive nature retreats in China, the US and Scandinavia.
“This is all private investment,” said Huang, a 55-year-old former government official, at a news conference at his company’s Beijing headquarters.
Icelandic Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir said this week the country welcomed the investment.
Icelandic Interior Minister Ogmundur Jonasson said the government, which limits land ownership by foreigners, was reviewing environmental and other aspects of the proposal before it decides whether to give approval.
Huang has agreed to pay private owners 1 billion Icelandic kronor (US$8.8 million) for 300km2 in the country’s northeast. The government also owns a portion of the land, known as Grimsstadir.
The Icelandic public initially favored the plan.
However, opposition arose as critics questioned whether it really was a tourism project and, even if it is, whether such a huge land sale is right for a country with just 320,000 people.
Among opponents to the project is Jon Thorisson, an architect who has campaigned against foreign ownership of Icelandic resources. He said that in tiny Iceland the deal is the equivalent of the US selling the state of Missouri.
Huang founded the Zhongkun Group (中坤集團) in 1995 after working in the Chinese government’s propaganda department and the Ministry of Construction. It has built residential and commercial projects throughout China.
Huang ranked 161st last year on Forbes magazine’s list of the richest Chinese entrepreneurs with a fortune estimated at US$890 million.
Icelandic critics also question the project’s feasibility.
Huang’s plan calls for 10,000 guests a year. Access would involve a two-and-a-half hour flight from the capital, Reykjavik, to the town of Akureyri in the island’s north and then either another flight or a drive over rural roads.
Huang said he hopes to win approval from the Chinese and Icelandic governments by February and to have completed the first phase of development by 2015.
Huang rejected suggestions that the project was part of a possible Chinese government effort to gain access to a harbor on Iceland’s northeast coast. He said he might buy a ship to bring in European tourists, but otherwise his plans had no connection to the harbor.
“If it involved politics or any other background [than tourism], I wouldn’t go there,” he said.
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