Nanshi plans cable car project
SHANGHAI'S Nanshi district, which includes the southern Bund area, plans to build a cable car system to Pudong across the Huangpu River to boost retail activities on both banks.
The district is seeking foreign funds for the US$700 million project which will include the 88-storey Nanshi office tower.
Lin Guorui, director of the Nanshi Foreign Economic Trade Commission, said the cable car system would ferry people from Nanshi - a district striving to become a bustling office and retail area - to Pudong's Zhangyang Road, where Asia's biggest department store, Yaohan's Shanghai Nextage, is.
He said the cable car system would be directly above the new cross-river tunnel near Nanshi that the city government would build.
The proposed office tower will be in the area bounded by Waiman Road, Fuxing East Road and Waixiangua Street in the southern Bund area.
Mr Lin said the overall planning for the project was completed and the district would be seeking funds for it.
'We can start work immediately,' he said.
Mr Lin said there had been interest from an Australian company in the project. Nanshi is one of the more active districts in Shanghai to seek foreign funds in Hong Kong.
Since October 1994, the district has released about 16 plots of land covering more than 1.3 million sq ft.
Mr Lin said the district had made available an additional 21 plots of land covering 30 hectares for foreign investors to develop housing for the domestic market.
He said the 30 hectares on Fuxing East Road, which would provide 12.9 million sq ft of gross floor area, could be used for developing flats to be sold to the domestic market at market prices or low-cost housing.
The latter will then be sold to the government, which guarantees developers a 15 per cent return on investment. The government, in turn, will sell the flats to residents at cost and priority goes to those who now live in unsanitary, dangerous and crammed housing.
Mr Lin said the Nanshi district had an additional 66.7 hectares of land for developing low-cost housing in Pudong's Yangsi district.
He said the completed flats would be used to house residents who had to relocate because of urban redevelopment.
Interest in the land had been expressed by investors from Singapore, Hong Kong and the United States.
Nanshi comprises the 79 hectare southern Bund, four hectare Lao Ximen and 35 hectare Yuyuan areas.
The southern Bund area is earmarked as an office and commercial area and the district aims to attract foreign and domestic banks, as well as companies to set up shop there.
The district's vice-magistrate, Yu Laibin, said an office-cum-commercial development project in the Lao Ximen area invested in by Henderson Land Development Co would be completed by October. The 20-storey building with a floor space of 43,056 sq ft involved an investment of about 300 million yuan (about HK$279 million).
Mr Yu said development of another area, Yuyuan, which is being promoted as a retail and tourist spot, was scheduled to be completed in 1997.
In addition to the territory's Emperor Group's entertainment complex taking up a 2.27 hectare site, he said a Portuguese company was to build a US$180 million Chinese-style hotel on a 2.4 hectare site.
