The so-called Lunar Embassy, through which one can purchase an acre
on the moon for 298 yuan (US$37), started operations yesterday in
Beijing.

Li Jie, chief executive officer of Beijing Lunar Village Aeronautics
Science Co Ltd, said his company is the sole agent in China for US-based
Lunar Embassy.

The area? Between 20 and 24 degrees latitude north and 30 to 34
degrees longitude west, the company says.

Lunar Embassy will issue customers a "certificate" that
ensures property ownership including rights to use the land and minerals
up to 3 kilometres underground

"We define it as a kind of novelty
gift with the potential of unlimited increase in value," said Li,
who was nominated as the agent in China by Dennis Hope, a US
entrepreneur who founded the first extraterrestrial estate agency Lunar
Embassy in 1980.

Hope thinks a loophole（漏洞）
in the 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty makes his property sales legitimate.
The agreement forbids governments from owning extraterrestrial property,
but fails to mention corporations or individuals.

"I have 3.5 million customers including ex-US presidents Ronald
Reagan, Jimmy Carter and movie stars who have purchased land on the
moon," said Hope at a press conference yesterday in Beijing. China
is the eighth country to have a Lunar Embassy after the United States,
Germany, Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and Japan, he said.

And there appear to be at least some moonstruck people in China Li
told reporters that he had received more than 400 telephone orders in
the past few days.

Meanwhile, not all believe that the trading is legal; and some even
regard it as fraud or a joke.