China Curbs Theme Park Projects

Wall Street Journal: China has suspended the construction of large theme parks to clamp down on local government spending and rein in unauthorized real-estate development.

The country's top economic planning agency has halted the construction of locally approved parks planned to be larger than 20 hectares or that have a total investment of more than 500 million yuan (US$78 million), according to a directive seen Tuesday.

"Since 2004, the State Council [China's cabinet] has clearly ruled that it must approve construction of large-scale theme parks. But in recent years local governments have approved large parks on their own," the National Development and Reform Commission said in the directive.

The suspension took effect Aug. 5 and covers projects already approved but for which construction hasn't yet begun. It will remain in place until the introduction of new regulations for the sector, the directive said.

The suspension comes as Beijing is under growing pressure to clean up the huge amount of debt that local governments have accumulated through infrastructure projects since it launched massive fiscal stimulus in 2008 to combat the global financial crisis.

China's national audit office has estimated that local government debt totaled 10.7 trillion yuan at the end of December, equivalent to 27% of the country's 2010 gross domestic product. It is unclear how much of that debt is at risk of going bad.

The Ministry of Finance on Monday said any risks from local debt are generally controllable, but conceded that some authorities have a weaker capacity to repay their debt.

The planning agency also appears to be taking aim at theme parks that have been quietly turned into property projects by local developers.

"Some companies have undertaken property development projects under the name of developing theme parks," it said.

China has been trying to rein in property prices, which have been spiraling out of reach of many of China's 1.3 billion people, spurring criticism of the government.

China's Counterfeit World of Warcraft Theme Park

Consumerist: The Chinese may have been the first to invent gunpowder and delicious pork-filled fried dumplings, but they have not caught up to the rest of the world when it comes to respecting intellectual property rights. Case in point, the recent opening of an entire themepark dedicated to World of Warcraft and Starcraft, two of the most popular online games in the world, in the Changzhou, Jiangsu province. It's a sprawling $30 million megaplex spanning 600,000 square meters that aspires to compete with Disney and Universal Studios as a global theme park destination. And it's a total knockoff. They didn't pay Blizzard, the company behind those two games, a dime.

The folks over at Shanghaist visited the park and took lots of pictures and detailed the experience. The place is massive. There are statues all over the place taller than a grown man with characters from the two video games. The funniest part is how even though they stole all the details and characters from the games, they know they can't go all out and call it "World of Warcraft Land" (although from the initial schematics that surfaced online a few months ago made it look like that was basically their original intention). They have to come up with their own phraseology. So Warcraft World is called "The Terrain of Magic." The Starcraft ripoff zone is called "Universe of Starship." The entire park is called "World Joyland."

Ripping off Apple stores wholesale is one thing, but it really takes gumption to steal an entire themepark.

China Claims Place at Paris Air Show

China's Passenger Jet C919

AFP: China aims to claim its rightful place at the Paris International Airshow this week alongside giants Airbus and Boeing, laying down a marker for its ambitions to be a major player in global aviation.

Airbus and Boeing dominate the hugely important Chinese market but Beijing has long made clear its intentions to make its own aircraft, moving swiftly up the technological ladder, just as it has in so many other products. Its immediate target is the medium-haul segment, carved up between Airbus with its A320 twin-engined series and Boeing's similar 737, the largest selling commercial aircraft since its launch in 1967 and a mainstay in Chinese skies.

Commercial Aircraft Corp of China (Comac) makes its first appearance at the Le Bourget airshow next week just north of Paris, with a mock-up of the cockpit and part of the fuselage of its C919 model. Currently under development, the 190-seat C919 is due to enter service in 2016, just after Airbus brings its upgraded and already much sought after A320neo to the market, raising the question of whether China's first commercial jet can make inroads against such tough opposition.

For the moment, Comac has won orders for some 100 C919s from Chinese airlines but has found only one foreign customer - the leasing arm of US conglomerate General Electric. The company is clearly hoping for more by setting up its stall at Le Bourget, analysts say.

"They want to talk to companies and to bring them up to date with how the (C919) project is going," said Christophe Menard, aerospace analyst with Kepler.

"There are discussions underway with a number of Western aviation companies," said Jean-Paul Ebanga, head of CFM International, the Franco-American firm supplying engines for the C919.

For the airlines to take the C919 seriously, there are the key issues of its airworthiness certification, its performance and delivery date to be resolved. To ensure it can bring the C919 to market successfully, Comac, part of the giant China Aviation Industry Corp (Avic), has joined up with several major Western groups -- CFMI for the engines, France's Michelin for tyres and Safran for the cabling of the aircraft.

"We have settled on a timetable and things are moving on. We have no reason to question the rationale of the programme," CFMI head Ebanga said.

For Menard, Comac's tie-ups with the Western companies are clearly intended to "bolster the credibility of the project" and reflect a simple truth -- if it is to stand any chance against Airbus and Boeing, it needs foreign help.

In March, the company announced another tie-up, this time with Canada's Bombardier which is also trying to break into the medium-haul market based on its experience in smaller passenger jets. "In terms of the airframe (fuselage and wings), Comac should benefit from Bombardier's experience," Menard said.

The accord with Bombardier will no doubt "help accelerate" the C919 project but for Airbus and Boeing, Comac still presents no immediate threat, he said.

"For them, it is a competitor but the threat is not for right now but for the medium-term, looking ahead to around 2020," Menard said.

At the same time, Comac will be just one of several likely new entrants to the highly competitive market, with Bombardier and Brazil's Embraer making great strides. "There will be other aviation companies, Chinese, Russian," Fabrice Bregier, the Airbus number two, said recently.

Airbus and Boeing will have to face a number of new competitors by 2030 and they will have to prepare for that, making sure that they "anticipate developments and invest in new technologies," Bregier said.

China Golf Courses Grow at Record Pace

Bloomberg: China’s ban on unauthorized golf courses failed to stem a record 14 percent increase in such facilities last year as developers circumvented rules aimed at halting the erosion of the nation’s farmland.

The world’s fastest-growing major economy added 60 18-hole courses last year, taking the total to 490, according to a report by Forward Management Group, a golf tour organizer in China. Only 10 of the nation’s golf facilities are licensed, with operators sometimes registering them as country parks or greenbelt areas, state-run Xinhua News Agency said.

The Ministry of Land and Resources banned construction of golf courses in 2004, and the ban will remain in effect until new rules are introduced, Gan Zangchun, deputy land inspector at the ministry, said last month. The Forward Management report highlights the difficulty China faces in stamping out illegal use of land that threatens the country’s ability to feed itself.

“It goes without saying how important it is to comply with the government’s farmland threshold policy to ensure grain security,” said Zhou Li, a professor at the School of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development of Renmin University of China.

Farmland shrank by 8.33 million hectares in the past 12 years, Premier Wen Jiabao’s top agricultural adviser, Chen Xiwen, said in March. The ruling Communist Party in 2007 set a threshold of 1.8 billion mu (120 million hectares) of farmland needed to feed the nation’s 1.3 billion people.

Last year 274,500 mu of farmland was used illegally for projects including golf courses, according to the land inspector’s annual report.

China’s farmland per capita is less than half the world average, and one-sixth that of the U.S., according to China Comment, a Communist Party magazine. Actual land loss may be greater than the government’s numbers suggest, as local officials fudge figures and illegal use proliferates.

Golf courses have sprung up all over China, except in Tibet, according to the report by Forward Management, which was published late last month and reported by Xinhua yesterday. “The golf tourism market prospect continues to be rosy after regular golf players jumped 11 percent to 330,000 people last year,” it said.

The central government failed to effectively curb the construction of the courses partly because of local government interests, the land ministry said in December 2009 on its web site, without elaborating. Some courses skirted supervision and won approval under the name of “forest parks,” it said.

Local governments made 2.7 trillion yuan ($415.5 billion) in 2010 selling rights to farmland for non-agricultural purposes, with total land sales constituting 60 to 70 percent of revenue, according to Landesa, a Seattle-based organization that works to secure land rights for the poor.

Hello Kitty Theme Park Planned for China

Channel News Asia: The creators of Hello Kitty, Japan's world-famous cartoon icon of cuteness, have agreed to a $230 million outdoor theme park in China, the first on foreign soil, a company spokesman said on Monday.

The Hello Kitty-themed amusement park will be completed in the city of Anji, in east China's Zhejiang province, in 2014 under an agreement between Sanrio Co and its Chinese partner, Sanrio spokesman Kazuo Tohmatsu said.

The project, jointly designed by Sanrio and US-based amusement park designer Hettema, will cost 1.5 billion yuan ($230 million) with construction scheduled to start in the second half of this year, the spokesman added.

"We have long received many requests from Asian countries to invest in building a theme park using our characters," Tohmatsu said, adding Sanrio will not make capital investment in the theme park.

Under the licensing agreement, the Chinese partner, a subsidiary of Shanghai Insight Holdings, will build and operate the park while Sanrio will provide its characters and planning, he said. The theme park will include hotel and catering services.

There is also another plan to build a much smaller indoor amusement park featuring Sanrio characters in Malaysia in 2012. There are currently two Hello Kitty theme parks in Japan, but none overseas.

Born in 1974, Kitty has spawned a massive global industry with sales of 50,000 Kitty products - including dolls, clothes, accessories and homeware - in 109 nations and territories.

China Slows Down Bullet Trains

AFP: China's rail minister said the nation's high-speed trains will run at a slower pace than previously announced, to make journeys safer and more affordable.

The new high-speed trains will run no faster than 300 kilometres (186 miles) per hour instead of the current top speed of 350 kilometres per hour, Sheng Guangzu said in an interview posted Thursday on the ministry's website. Sheng's comments come after the fall in February of railways minister Liu Zhijun, who allegedly took more than 800 million yuan ($122 million) in kickbacks on contracts linked to expanding China's high-speed rail network.

Starting in July, trains on high-speed lines will run between 200 kilometres per hour and 300 kilometres per hour, Sheng said in the interview first published in the Communist party mouthpiece the People's Daily on Wednesday.

The move means trains using the line linking the southern city Guangzhou and central Wuhan city, which launched in 2009, will have to cut their speed as they already travel at 350 kilometres an hour. The line connecting Beijing and Shanghai -- due to start running later this year -- was also supposed to travel at that speed.

The change will make operations of high-speed railways safer and train tickets more affordable, Sheng said, following complaints over pricing. "We must manage the scale of construction reasonably. There should be some overstepping in construction of railway, but not too much," he was quoted as saying.

Sheng said China is investing 2.8 trillion yuan between 2011 and 2015 in construction of new railway lines of about 30,000 kilometres. China has invested heavily in its high-speed rail network, which reached 8,358 kilometres at the end of 2010 and is expected to exceed 13,000 kilometres by 2012 and 16,000 kilometres by 2020.

China's Ping Pong Paddle Hotel

AOL Travel: China is set to build a hotel shaped like an upside-down ping-pong paddle as part of a new $45.8 million sports complex.

The China Daily newspaper reports rounded guestroom windows will resemble the surface texture of a table tennis racket, while the "handle" of the 500-foot hotel will be an observation deck, allowing tourists to take in a view of the city of Huainan, where the hotel will be built.

"An erected ping-pong racket has a perfect architectural shape for a hotel," Jin Chang, director with Huainan Municipal Bureau of Sports, tells the news outlet.

But the ping-pong racket hotel isn't the only oddly shaped building in the works for the 165-acre sporting complex: there will also be a main stadium shaped like an American football, plus smaller stadiums and gym facilities shaped like a volleyball, soccer ball, and basketball.

The sports bureau has signed an agreement with China Sports Industry Group that guarantees various sports games will be held in the stadiums over the next 20 years.

This is not the first time hotel designers have turned to sports for inspiration. The Jumeirah Beach Hotel in Dubai is designed as a wave to compliment the sail-shaped Burj al Arab, one of Dubai's most iconic images.

In France, the Rugby World Cup was celebrated with the construction of a giant rugby ball hotel in 2007. During the event, rooms cost nearly $10,000 per night.

Construction to Begin Friday on Shanghai Disney

Bloomberg: Walt Disney Co. and its partner in a proposed theme park in Shanghai scheduled an April 8 groundbreaking for the project, according to people with knowledge of the plans.

Disney scheduled an event, with government-owned partner Shanghai Shendi Group Co., in an e-mail (dated 4/1) without elaborating. Construction begins that day, said the people, who weren’t authorized to speak publicly.

The start of construction marks a milestone in a five-year process involving negotiations with city and central government officials. Chief Executive Officer Robert Iger and Parks & Resorts Chairman Thomas Staggs will attend, said one of the people. The park’s size, investment commitments and final approval from Beijing’s central government will be announced as well, the people said.

Iger said at the shareholder meeting on March 23 that Disney, the world’s largest theme-park operator, was close to receiving final approval for its first resort on mainland China, the world’s most-populous nation. A public-comment period on the plans ends on April 6.

The Magic Kingdom will open in “about five years,” Staggs said at an investor meeting on Feb. 17. The first phase calls for an investment of 24.5 billion yuan ($3.7 billion), Han Zheng, Shanghai’s mayor, said in March.

Shanghai has designated a 7-square-kilometer (1,730 acres) tourist zone that will include the Disney park. The first phase will also include hotels, car parks, a lake and commuter stations, according to a blueprint posted on the Shanghai city website last month.

Shanghai also plans to spend 4 billion yuan on a 9.2- kilometer (5.7-mile) subway line for the complex in the city’s Pudong area. Construction will begin in September and the line is scheduled to open by July 2015, according to a Jan. 18 government statement. The city government started building infrastructure for the project last year, Jiang Shujie, deputy director of the city’s construction and transport commission, said on Jan. 7.

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China's Amazing 'Window of the World' Theme Park

The 'Window of the World' theme park is located in the western part of the city of Shenzhen in the People's Republic of China. The attraction has over 100 reproductions of some of the most famous tourist attractions in the world squeezed into 118 acres. The Eiffel Tower dominates the skyline, and the sight of the Pyramids and the Taj Mahal all in proximity to each other are part of the park's appeal.

Different festivals from around the world are celebrated here throughout the year including Christmas, the International Beer Festival, pop music performances during China's National day, etc. A spectacular large scale evening show is presented daily.