New | China’s mall-and-theme-parks tycoon outlines plan to set up tourism, sports complex in Jinan
Wanda Group chairman Wang Jianlin calls on government to cut import taxes, impose heavy fines on China’s bootleg products, and run a campaign to improve the image of Chinese brands
Wang Jianlin, who built his US$33.3 billion fortune through malls, theme parks, hotels and cinemas, said on Friday that Wanda Group would invest 63 billion yuan (HK$73.2 billion) to set up a tourism and sports complex in Jinan, the capital of Shandong province.
The project, spread over 5.3 million square metres of floor area, will have malls, sports facilities, hotels and a theme park. Wanda will also build 20 entertainment theme park complexes in China to keep more Chinese tourists at home, Wang said.
Chinese tourists are expected to be the largest group of travellers in the world this year, with 64 million people already crossing the country’s border during the first six months, according to data provided by the China Outbound Tourism Institute.
The country’s shoppers spent as much as 1.5 trillion yuan (HK$1.74 trillion) abroad last year, half of that going toward shopping, according to China’s commerce minister Gao Hucheng. By Wang’s estimates, the tab could be as high as 2.5 trillion yuan. If only 30 per cent of that amount can be kept at home, that’s enough to bolster the country’s economic growth, he said.
“Overseas consumption expanded at a much faster pace than domestic consumption in recent years,” Wang said during a conference in Beijing on Thursday to promote his company’s e-commerce platform Feifan.
Chinese consumers like overseas brands and services because they’re cheaper, frequently better made, and adhere to higher safety standards, Wang said.