中国的房地产女王
60年代在北京出生的张欣，1992年获得英国剑桥大学发展经济学硕士学位；1992年至1995年，先后在高盛集团(GoldenSachs)和美国华尔街投资银行旅行家集团(TravelersGroup)任职，负责中国直接投资项目。94年和潘石屹(当时是北京房地产公司老总)结婚，95年回到北京，和丈夫携手在建筑界打天下，成为SOHO中国联席总裁，2002年10月，凭借"长城脚下的公社"获得了相当于建筑领域奥斯卡奖的全球"建筑艺术推动大奖"。被称为中国房地产界的女王。
At the centre of the slowdown in China is the country’s property market which is seeing prices in decline for the 1st time in years. It’s impossible to pinpoint where things are heading next but this woman knows China’s property market as well as anyone and right now she’s not terribly optimistic.
“Until the real estate prices stabilizes, the economy will continue to deteriorate.”
Zhang Xin founded Soho China with her husband 14 years ago. Today the company is one of China’s most successful developers with 7 completed projects, totalling more than 18 million square feet.
According to Soho in terms of area, that’s about 1/5 of Beijing’s central business district. But in the current climate, Zhang, who has a master in economics from Cambridge University, is scaling back her company’s expectations.
“2008, Beijing alone, the real estate market, if you look at the residential side, transactions went down 50%, which means that construction for this year significantly slow down. So for 2009, we’re not projecting a very optimistic scene.
“Do you think the government is going about this whole situation in the right way?”
“It’s very hard to say. Who has ever been through this? Everyone, the government, the private sector, is trying to do their best. I think any view to say this is right, this is wrong is too early. “
It’s an about-face from the problem Soho was grappling with back in 2007.
about-face:彻底改变；
grapple with 尽力克服
“When 2 years ago, everything was going up, you couldn’t get workers, you couldn’t get cement, you couldn’t get steels. Now of course we’re facing another different sets of problems.”
But this 43-year-old billionaire is pushing ahead with 4 more Soho projects including a futuristic complex designed by the firm of world renowned architect Zaha Hadid., another building that will further transform the ever-changing Beijing skyline.
