No Peace for Mandarin Oriental in Shanghai
We see that the Mandarin Oriental Group after many years of searching has found a hotel to run in Shanghai. It has signed an agreement to manage a new luxury hotel currently under construction in Pudong which is expected to open in 2013.
The new hotel, the company tells us, is in the heart of the Lujiazui Central Financial District, across the river from the Bund. The hotel will have 362 guest rooms and 210 serviced apartments and will be part of 'Harbour City,' a 25-hectare mixed use development comprising office towers, a residential complex, significant retail and extensive landscaped gardens, 'that will transform the neighbourhood'.
The development is within walking distance of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, the regional headquarters of major domestic and international financial institutions, and has direct access to the promenade on the banks of the Huangpu River. The hotel is being designed by Bernardo Fort-Brescia of Arquitectonica. The project owner is Shanghai Rui Ming Real Estate Company; a joint venture between Hong Kong-listed Citic Pacific and the state-owned China State Shipbuilding Corporation. Mandarin Oriental originally had its eye on The Peace Hotel on the Bund and spent about four years between 2001-2005 trying to achieve a deal with the Jin Jiang (Group) that owned The Peace. A key sticking point was the price that Jin Jiang were trying to extract for the hotel.
Go figure
A number of countries have been celebrating World Statistics Day with a series of events throughout the week. We earlier touched on some of Hong Kong's difficulties with statistics, but one country that routinely rolls out a target for economic growth and inflation at the beginning of the year - and routinely hits it - is China. The target for economic growth has been 8 per cent and China never falls below this.