China tycoon slams Iceland investment rejection

BEIJING (AP) - A Beijing businessman says anti-Chinese prejudice and double standards are behind Iceland's decision to turn down his proposal to build a vast nature retreat in the north Atlantic island nation.

Iceland's interior ministry said Friday it had rejected an application by Huang Nubo's Zhongkun Group to buy 120 square miles (30,639 hectares) of land on the north shore of Iceland in a deal that would have been worth about 1 billion Icelandic kronur ($8.8 million).

While the country's prime minister previously said she would welcome Huang's investment, the ministry said it could not lift the country's restrictions on the purchase of land by foreigners to allow the deal to go ahead.

However, in an interview in the official China Daily newspaper appearing Sunday, Huang said the rejection was indicative of anti-Chinese attitudes in the West.

"There are still double standards," Huang was quoted as saying.

Western countries wish to "encourage the opening of the Chinese market while they close their doors to Chinese investments," he said.

Huang complained he had received little help from the interior ministry and speculated the rejection may have resulted from a power struggle among the country's politicians. He said he would not be renewing his interest in Iceland and would instead take on new projects in the U.S. and in other Nordic countries such as Sweden and Finland.

Huang's proposed project had been seen by some as a lifeline for Iceland's struggling economy as it battles back from the collapse of its banking industry in 2008.

He had hoped the site in Iceland's northeast - which would have represented about 0.3 percent of the island's land mass - would attract about 10,000 guests a year and create scores of new jobs.

Since its financial meltdown, Iceland's economy has begun to recover - with the International Monetary Fund predicting economic growth of 2.5 percent in 2012, far better than some of its struggling European neighbors.

Some critics of the proposed deal had raised concerns that allowing Huang to purchase the land could give China a strategic toehold in the Arctic Circle, where nations are scrambling to claim natural resources and melting ice caps are expected to eventually open up new, faster global shipping lanes.

Huang earlier rejected those claims and insisted that he planned the Icelandic site would be part of a chain of nature resorts in China, the United States and Scandinavia.

Halldor Johannsson, Huang's representative in Iceland, said he was surprised by the government's rebuff and claimed Icelandic law did not include limits on the size of a parcel of land an investor could purchase.

Source: http://www.kboi2.com/news/business/China-tycoon-slams-Iceland-investment-rejection-134562348.html

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