Shanghai private venture evokes Paris-of-the-East era
A Hong Kong company is helping Shanghai reclaim its status as the Paris of the East by launching the first private business club in almost 50 years.
More than 200 clubs are believed to have flourished in Shanghai before World War II, but none survived the Cultural Revolution.
American Clubs International (ACI), based in Central, opened the Shanghai American Club, overlooking the Bund and fast-growing Pudong business district, this weekend.
The company has also signed a proposal with China Resources Holdings to open Beijing's fourth private club early next year.
'There's room for many more clubs in Beijing for different markets, with different services,' said ACI executive director Michael Ho Yiu-sum.
'I think we'll have a niche in Beijing with expats.
'At the moment we're looking at around 55,000 square feet, and we'll very likely have a country club. The city club we are already designing, and construction should start in August,' he said.
The seeds of the $82.5 million Shanghai club were sown four years ago, when Mr Ho and ACI managing director Richard Ross were running the Hong Kong American Club.
'A lot of Hong Kong people are coming to Shanghai,' Mr Ho said. 'One reckoning is that there are 10,000 doing business here.
'A lot come up on a short-term basis. They arrive on Monday to work and take the last flight back to Hong Kong on Friday night.' An estimated half of the initial 450 members are Hong Kong business people.
Private clubs are a growing business on the mainland, and several ventures have tried to open in Shanghai, but problems with management and government bureaucracy have dogged many.
Shanghai's development has been fast-tracked since the early 1990s. Mr Ross points to new Hyatt, Shangri-La and Holiday Inn hotels underway in the Pudong district.
'There's no doubt with the resources Beijing is putting in here, pretty soon it will start to rival Hong Kong in some areas,' he said.
'Beijing decided [Pudong] was where the action is going to be and put the resources into it. Every bank in China will have a headquarters there. It's a whole new business district and office area going in.' Those at the Friday night launch included Beijing's Vice-Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Co-operation Chen Xinhua and former Chief Secretary Sir David Akers-Jones.
