Macrolink to invest $3.2b overseas

Fu Jun, chairman of the board of Macrolink and a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. [Photo/IC]

Riding the rising wave of investing overseas, Macrolink Group, a leading private enterprise in China, is expected to invest as much as 20 billion yuan ($3.2 billion) in the next three years to tap the tourism and mineral resources abroad.

Fu Jun, chairman of the board of Macrolink and a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, said that the 20 billion yuan investment will be used for three overseas projects between 2015 and 2017.

"Two projects are tourism-related and the other one is a mineral resources project," Fu said on the sidelines of the ongoing two sessions.

Fu's Beijing-headquartered Macrolink Group is engaged in various industries from real estate, oil and mineral resources to finance through a collection of subsidiaries. Macrolink Group claimed to have revenues of nearly 57 billion yuan in 2014.

With an increasing number of Chinese outbound travelers, Fu said it is very promising to invest in tourism real estate overseas.

The number of outbound tourist departures from the mainland exceeded 100 million in a calendar year for the first time in November 2014, according to the China National Tourism Administration. Nearly 90 percent of the departures were to the Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan regions and some Asian countries.

In January 2014, the A-share listed Macrolink signed an agreement with South Korea's Black Stone Resort to jointly spend about 200 million yuan on a joint venture on Cheju Island. The latter owns several gambling licenses issued by the South Korean government.

Fu said construction of the project on Cheju Island is expected to kick off within this year. "The project will include hotels, restaurants and shopping malls to cater to the needs of the wealthy Chinese," he said.

Fu said the window for Chinese private enterprises that want to invest overseas is open.