经济敏感区 中国房地产泡沫

The sales pitch promises a residential development like no other. It's called "The World": luxury villas, homes, and apartments all divided into five continents and linked together by smaller replicas of iconic bridges. The world's biggest indoor ski ramp, the biggest water park in Asia, even a seven-star hotel. "That's the seven-star hotel there." Shi Rui in charge of marketing tells me, ”It'll have full water views in every room, even the restrooms. It'll be the most comfortable hotel in the world.”

The entire project would take five years to build on almost 2,000 acres on the outskirts of Tianjin--a second-tier city three hours drive south of Beijing. Total cost around four billion US dollars funded mostly by one of China's biggest state-owned banks. Construction is well underway on phase one called North America.

Villas like these started selling back in March for around 300,000 US dollars. The developer says now less than a year later, they doubled in price. But that's nothing compared to the luxury high-end property they are trying to sell.

This house, made of glass and still on the drawing board, and it could be yours for close to 60 million US dollars.

So an indoor ski slope, seven-star hotel, luxury villas. If it all sounds like you’ve heard it before, oh, that's because you have.

Think Dubai with its seven-star hotel, indoor ski ramp, massive developments and more recently a real estate bubble which burst. And that's what economists are predicting for all of China's property market as well. A massive government stimulus package and more than a trillion dollars in bank loans have fuelled a boom in house prices this year.

The nature of our lending, yah, not so different from subprime, the nature, okay, not so different, okay. In such a short period of time, you granted so many loans. Did you do your homework?

The developers of "The World" insist they have no shortage of buyers and almost all of them are Chinese.

"Before we started, we did very detailed planning and analysis," she says, "we are certain our projects will develop very quickly."

But more and more economists say China is facing a double-dip next year and warn the bigger the boom, the bigger the bust.
John Vause, cnn, Tianjin.

Glossary

sales pitch: 推销员的宣传腔调

fuel: to make something, especially something bad, increase or become stronger

double-dip: double-dip recession, A double-dip recession refers to a recession followed by a short-lived recovery, followed by another recession. 双谷衰退，类似W形的衰退