Ögmundur Jónasson, Iceland’s Minister of the Interior, has rejected Chinese billionaire Huang Nubo’s application to buy 30,639 hectares in northeast Iceland for the construction of a luxury resort.
Ögmundur says his decision not to grant Mr. Huang’s application for an exemption to the law barring non-EEA nationals from acquiring large plots of land in Iceland is in accordance with Icelandic law and rules. The size of the proposed purchase would have rendered the law pointless had an exemption been made, the minister said.
Ögmundur explained to RÚV after yesterday’s extended cabinet meeting that it was not an individual trying to buy Grímsstaðir á Fjöllum, but rather a limited company, largely owned by the individual: Huang Nubo. It was the opinion of the minister and the Ministry of the Interior, after careful consideration, that the company did not qualify for an exemption to the law. To provide the exemption in this case would have set such a huge legal precedent that non-EEA parties would have felt confident in gaining exemptions for almost any land purchases in the future, Ögmundur added. The land in question amounts to roughly 0.3 percent of Iceland’s entire land area.
Asked if his decision had been universally welcomed, or at least accepted, by his cabinet colleagues, Ögmundur dodged the question; saying it was a decision which fell solely on the Minister of the Interior to make.
Unsurprisingly the decision has split opinion within the two government parties. The larger Social Democrats were widely seen as being more pro- the potentially lucrative deal than Ögmundur’s Left Green Movement.
Northeast Iceland Social Democrat MP Sigmundur Ernir Rúnarsson was quick to criticise; describing the decision as “crazy”:
“I find this a crazy decision by the minister who, in his intransigence, is probably unfit to take this decision in light of the declarations he has made on the case in the lead up to the decision. Quite apart from that, there are at least 25 precedents for cases of this kind. This is a deplorable message to the people outside the capital region where there is a need to distribute the tourism industry better across the country and better across all times of year — and this is a devastating message to send out into the world to investors who are eyeing the country,” Sigmundur said.
He added that he has called for a special Social Democrat working group to go over the matter and he also said he wants to hold a meeting with Ögmundur Jónasson in person — adding that the matter is by no means over in his opinion.
Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir (leader of the Social Democrats) also commented later in the day, describing Ögmundur’s decision as “a disappointment”.
Background to this story can be read here:
Chinese investor wants to build luxury country hotel in Iceland
North Iceland tourism officials support Chinese land purchase plan
Chinese investment in Iceland making world headlines
Icelandic ministers gearing up for Chinese investment battle?
[…] Ocean in August 2012. There is also an eccentric bid by Chinese real estate tycoon Huang Nubo to build a luxury gold resort in the Northeast Iceland since late 2011 that is raising alarm along with more than a few […]
“Lets not get distracted off topic, but of course the US in post WWII years was interested in stopping Germany from invading other countries again as it had tendendy to do during 19th ( Prussia ) and 20th ”
Where did you get this nonsense from?
In the 50?s the US gave amnesty to high ranking German army figures, encouraging the start of the Bundeswehr.
The new enemy was communism and is again due to the ignorance of the democratic societies and their casino capitalism. You do not know about the chinese engagement in the pacific rim or Africa.
Whoever nice guy buys land in Iceland, the chinese regime can seize this property in no time, even without the notice of the people here.
Read more: https://www.icenews.is/index.php/2011/11/26/chinese-investors-iceland-resort-construction-bid-rejected-by-minister/#ixzz3O0zAgfQ5
Viva, the Green of Iceland.
So what has your post Axel got to do with Ögmundur’s decision to screw up a sale by Icelandic people of their own property in Grimstadir á fjöllum for a tourist project that would have pay taxes to local munucipality ( and central government ) and employ local people ?
https://www.icenews.is/index.php/2011/08/26/chinese-investor-wants-to-build-luxury-country-hotel-in-iceland/#comment-554310
And for all fans of of it , that crazy Taiwan TV animation show has its say :
http://www.nma.tv/iceland-spurns-chinese-investor-land-deal/
>Could it be that the evil empire was funded by the evil empire
You mean the USSR funded itself?
Lets not get distracted off topic, but of course the US in post WWII years was interested in stopping Germany from invading other countries again as it had tendendy to do during 19th ( Prussia ) and 20th Century ( German unified state ). After all US spent so much money and lives in World I and II.
EU is not an evil empire but it is the sucessor in form and endgame to what was started in USSR :
” Unlike the Soviet Union, the European Union has had to start from the actual collectivisation of nation-States into one centralised monolith (a process the Soviets had found partially complete in the Tsarist Russian Empire). Once you collectivise the nation-States, then you can collectivise the actual nations: the peoples forming those societies and communities that had hitherto enjoyed an element of healthy self-rule and diversified self-determination within their own cultural rooting.
Unlike the Soviet Union, the European Union does not outrightly prohibit free enterprise and free speech. Instead, it stifles them with a multitude of financial regulations and so-called ‘anti-terrorist’ laws which are in and of themselves also prohibitions. Europe’s own znakomiy economy has long existed, but the more laws and regulations are euro-concocted, the more shall this sub-economy flourish within the limits (and in effect) of criminalisation.
Today the euro-integrationists are telling us how wonderful “subsidiarity” and “shared sovereignty” are. But what do these terms mean? Perhaps: ‘One European State for all European nations and all European nations for one European State’? Is this not the same spurious ‘one-for-all-and-all-for-one philosophy’ that the Soviet Union had professed?
This utopia may look good on paper and it sounds even better through the lips of demagogues, but in reality it collectivises whole nations into an artificial, economically hegemonised, ‘synthetic’ State — an empire. This hegemonic rule, no matter how democratic it may appear to be, is predisposed towards the creation of voiceless minorities.
Free speech may now be sacrificed on the alter of political correctness, as our civil liberties are eroded for our own security. Meanwhile the ‘free market’ is further regulated by EU bureaucrats in cahoots with member states’ big governments and global corporations. One should not blame them for fighting off competition like desperate Soviet dinosaurs, much in line with the philosophy of John D. Rockefeller, who once proclaimed that ‘competition is bad for business’. Indeed it is. At this rate opening a tobacconist will soon become a steep enterprising feat. ?
Markets are managed, yet we think they are ‘free’. We vote red, blue, green or yellow, yet big government keeps getting bigger and the corporatists always win. We have pluralistic media networks which see so-called Euro-scepticism as un-European; which embrace the collectivisation of nation states and push the supra-national agenda. We see culture, nation and country denigrated, for these give people a sense of identity, which is a force of resistance to supra-national governance. We also see one race played against the other and one culture brushed against another in a multicultural paradigm, disuniting the nation states towards collectivising them.
??Collectivism was good for the Soviet supra-national elite. In fact, collectivism is good for any elite. It keeps nations in perpetual serfdom. It keeps political power in the hands of the very few, and commercial and financial competition at bay. How else would you save dinosaur corporations in a ‘free market’ if big government does not prop them up? Without corporate-inspired legislation, ever-changing social and technological circumstances would mean that some of the more flexible, smaller enterprises eventually win over the larger uncompetitive behemoths. Rockefeller was right. Competition is bad for business. Serfs cannot be allowed to be entrepreneurs. ”
( from ‘ Decay of Empire Or the Soviet Experiment and the Future of Europe ‘ by BY KEVIN ELLUL-BONICI.)
[…] ”Chinese investor’s Iceland resort construction bid rejected by minister,” IceNews […]
[…] ”Chinese investor’s Iceland resort construction bid rejected by minister,” IceNews […]
Fisy said.
“I am for EFTA staying, not losing our sovereingty to remote EU burecrats.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/1356047/Euro-federalists-financed-by-US-spy-chiefs.html
Could it be that the evil empire was funded by the evil empire.
There is a small group of people who come up with all the ideas, run all the scams, and decide what you think.
>The kind Fisy likes, social democrats mostly.
As you well know if you did read my posts in same way that I read yours Axel over years here that I have never voted for Social Demicrats.
( There is one only worth a damn in current cabinet and that is Katrín Júlíusdóttir. )
I voted for this worth less Left Greens in last elections. It was because of they anti EU joining stance. I am for EFTA staying, not losing our sovereingty to remote EU burecrats. WE have enough problems keepign our own MPs in check.
Steingrímur and his other Left Green crazies have betrayed they supporters being in bed with Jóhanna ” there is no Plan B ” Sigurðardóttir’s party.
I regret that decision I made to vote for them, but I am not the only one.
Given quality of people it wont be long before this useless Red-Green coalition self destructs and consigned to dustbin of history. The Left Green will not be trusted again with power in this country.
>Ögmundur did the right thing and the only thing he could do, according to law, its as simple as that.
What nonsesne. This is meant to be a rubber stamping power only.
>If Nubo had been allowed to buy this land that exception would have rendered the
>law prohibiting such sales to foreigners useless
And the problem with that is?
Ögmundur did the right thing and the only thing he could do, according to law, its as simple as that.
This whole episode is quite interesting. Nubo came to Iceland for the first time last year and flew over Grimstadir á fjöllum once in a helicopter, and then decides to build a Hotel and golf course in the highland.
maybe he is going to hit snowballs on this golf course, and use gravel instead of grass, there is plenty of it up there.
He also intended to offer hot air balloon rides, probably for those who are thrill seekers and bored with tedious stuff like base jumping.
If Nubo had been allowed to buy this land that exception would have rendered the law prohibiting such sales to foreigners useless and opened up a can of worms.
So Nubo is not the main issue.
I would say that Nubo would have been sold a Lemon, and at the same time served as a key to open up assets of far greater interest for a horde of evil rotten a**holes.
The kind Fisy likes, social democrats mostly.
If Nubo is offended he should keep in mind that Icelanders are not allowed to buy land in China.
” To provide the exemption in this case would have set such a huge legal precedent that non-EEA parties would have felt confident in gaining exemptions for almost any land purchases in the future, Ögmundur added. The land in question amounts to roughly 0.3 percent of Iceland’s entire land area. ”
And the problem is Ögmundur?
It is property owner who is selling, and local municipality ( including people that live next to this property owner ) to decide on planning use.
Thank the Lords being member of EFTA and in EEA does protect us from more of this arbitrary decisions by that has its place in Putin’s Russia, not Iceland.
Usually I am happy that we do have our own sovereignty but when I do see idiot decision like this I feel warm suddenly to the pillar of the EEA agreement that Knowless does find so dist-tastful.
This is just one of the many swivelled eyed looony decision that Left-Greens have tried to take — and now IMF is out of country there can only be more like this.
Excellent decision. Let the development of the tourist industry be at the hands of Icelanders — for the benefit of Icelanders and Iceland.
Iceland has ample resources and talented citizens who can do a fine job of taking Iceland where it wants to go.
Good call! The luxury resort project is meant to fail because Iceland have nothing solid to offer. Tourists want sunshine, beaches, redlight districts and downtowns loaded with boutiques and duty-free stores not goat heads for meals.
The best thing minister could do!; Imagine the dangerous precedent this could be, who would be the owner of Iceland in 20 years time?, I believe now Icelanders will be.