Disney in initial deal to build Shanghai park

[mkt]

Disney in initial deal to build Shanghai park-paper
July 19

HONG KONG(Reuters)-- The Walt Disney Company has signed a letter of intent with authorities in Shanghai to build a theme park in the thriving Chinese coastal city, the Hong Kong Economic Times reported on Friday.

Citing unidentified sources, the newspaper said details of the deal were under discussion and construction of the Shanghai park would take less time than Hong Kong's Disney project.

A Disney spokeswoman in Hong Kong said: "We've always stated that having two parks in China was always a possibility. But our focus now is to complete the Hong Kong Disney park by 2005 and 2006."

If the Shanghai park goes ahead it will be Disney's third in Asia.

The report is certain to raise eyebrows in Hong Kong, which is in the process of building a multi-billion dollar Disney park, which the city hopes would be a magnet for visitors from mainland China and rejuvenate its mature tourism industry.

Many quarters in Hong Kong fear that having another park on mainland China would give too much competition.

The Hong Kong park, to be built on reclaimed land off Lantau island, is due to open by early 2006.

The newspaper said the central government in Beijing would assure that Shanghai's Disney park will not open sooner than Hong Kong's.

Japan is the only place in Asia now with a Disney park.

07/18/02 21:19 ET

 

[Fievel]

Now if they could only build parks in the states that fast.

 

[FutureCEO]

why 2 parks in china of the same thing. granted china has 1 billion people but come on

 

[Al]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/business/newsid_2137000/2137993.stm

 

[Sketch105]

I don't like the idea of territorial parks. I don't like the plans for the Hong Kong park either. Only 3 lands plus Main Street USA? It seems like half made park to me.

They need to stop expanding so quickly and focus on making their parks exemplary again. I hate the new "low-budget, cut-corners deal." Disney's California Adventure should have been the end of the low-grade parks, but it seems to be just the beginning!!!

 

[TravisMT81]

I swear management has sh** for brains!! Though the Oriental Express goes to Shanghai.

 

[adr315]

No one else has a problem with Disney building parks in a communist country? Whats next, Disneyland North Korea and Disneyworld Cuba?

 

[FutureCEO]

:lol: Disneyland Irag, Afganisten, Iran, Colombia....ohhh the possiblities

 

[CmdrTostada]

I also find that a bit weird, Walt Disney was actually one of the main Hollywood types that turned in Commies.

 

[Mouse3268]

Originally posted by FutureCEO
:lol: Disneyland Irag, Afganisten, Iran, Colombia....ohhh the possiblities

Diseyland Somalia

 

[adr315]

Originally posted by FutureCEO
:lol: Disneyland Irag, Afganisten, Iran, Colombia....ohhh the possiblities

Im guessing u mean Iraq, and not Irag..... btw, Colombia and Afghanistan are not communist nations....

 

[Sketch105]

Originally posted by adr315
No one else has a problem with Disney building parks in a communist country? Whats next, Disneyland North Korea and Disneyworld Cuba?

umm, last I checked Cuba was the only full communist country. Not all of China is communist. Its only a political/social philosophy. Communism is a system of government that sounded good on paper, but caused the downfall of the Soviet Union. Its just a system like democracy.

Communism, I think, was paved like a good intention. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Please stop regarding to them like they were nazis or something!

This I found in forbes.com:
Shanghai: China's New Gotham
Mark Lewis, 11.02.01, 6:00 PM ET

NEW YORK - One spring day in the not-too-distant past, I straggled into Shanghai with a backpack and a dog-eared copy of the Lonely Planet guide to China. It recommended the decrepit Astor House near the Bund for cheap accommodations, so I put up there for the night.

For a few yuan I received a bed in a dormitory room on an upper floor, filled with other scruffy backpackers thumbing through their own Lonely Planet guidebooks. The chapter on Shanghai assured us that this storied city was fast returning to its capitalist roots. We did not need to go far to find proof: Shanghai's new stock exchange was housed just downstairs in the hotel's former ballroom.
Threading my way through the milling stock traders, I walked out onto the Bund, admiring its array of Art Deco office towers from Shanghai's heyday in the 1920s and 1930s. Less impressive was Pudong, the muddy construction site across the river where a shiny cluster of modern skyscrapers was supposed to arise.

China's rulers had decided to make Shanghai their new financial center, but this struck me as typical communist overreaching. You can't simply decree a New York into existence, I thought. It has to grow naturally, in response to favorably pro-capitalist conditions--such as those that had created Hong Kong, the dazzling modern metropolis to which I returned a week later. Shanghai would grow, I concluded, but it would never catch up to Hong Kong, the obvious future gateway to China.

That was in 1993--ancient history in this part of the world. By last month, when President George W. Bush visited Shanghai for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, Pudong fairly bristled with impressive glass towers. One of them now houses the stock exchange, which has left its ballroom days behind and is fast gaining on Hong Kong's bourse. The conventional wisdom now seems to be that Shanghai eventually will elbow its longtime rival aside and regain its long-lost status as China's paramount city.

Hong Kong and Shanghai were both sleepy fishing villages until the British took them over in 1842 and turned them into dynamic trading centers. Both cities prospered mightily, but it was decadent, sophisticated Shanghai that became known as the "Paris of the East." That all ended in 1949 when the communists took over and the capitalists fled to Taiwan--and to Hong Kong, which waxed as Shanghai waned. Then in 1997 the British ceded Hong Kong back to China. Nowadays communism is dead, Shanghai is lurching back to life and Hong Kong is increasingly nervous about its future.

Paris is out as a model, but both Hong Kong and Shanghai hope to be "the New York of the East." Does it matter which one wins the title? Not necessarily, unless you're heavily invested in high-priced Hong Kong real estate. The nation's economic potential is so vast that there will be a need for several financial centers, especially after World Trade Organization membership accelerates China's embrace of capitalism. Hong Kong has many advantages, including the rule of law that is a legacy of the British period. It will remain a world-class city even if it is eclipsed by a resurgent Shanghai. After all, Chicago isn't quite New York, but Chicago does pretty well for itself.

Besides, Hong Kong has other rivals to worry about, such as nearby Shenzen and Guangzhou. And Shanghai itself must worry about Beijing, which remains the center of political power and which may not remain content to play Washington to Shanghai's New York. China's current rulers Jiang Zemin and Zhu Rongji have Shanghai connections, but future rulers may have more loyalty to other cities--and this is still a nation where government bureaucrats shape the flow of investment.

Still, Shanghai has lots more going for it than Beijing's temporary favor. Half a century of communism failed to extinguish the vibrant entrepreneurial spirit that originally created the Bund and has flowered again in Pudong and elsewhere. The old Astor House may have fallen upon hard times, but it's highly unlikely that future backpackers will ever find cheap beds available at the Grand Hyatt Shanghai, which now looms over the Bund from the upper floors of the gleaming Jin Mao Tower.

Make no mistake: Shanghai is back. Hong Kong and Singapore and even Tokyo must make room for a new peer, one that soon may claim the status of first among equals.