Disney park soon to be built in Shanghai after years of negotiations

Disney park soon to be built in Shanghai after years of negotiations

Residents of mainland China may soon come in droves to a new Disney theme park to be constructed in Shanghai. Walt Disney Co. and Shanghai Shendi Group have finalized a deal for the establishment of the park in the city, the Xinhua news agency reported on Friday.

Walt Disney Co. said that it is still waiting for some paperwork to be processed by Chinese regulators before construction can go in full swing.

“For quite some time, we have been involved in discussions with the Shanghai government about building a Disney theme park. We can confirm the statement from the Shanghai government that we have taken another step forward in the approval process,” a Disney spokesman told Reuters.

Disneyland Shanghai is located at an area of 4 square kilometres or 1.5 square miles. The park will cost $3.75 billion to build.  A majority stake would be held by the Shanghai local government.

Disney’s other theme park in Hong Kong has had dismal number of visitors in the past year and Disney hopes Disneyland Shanghai would be more successful. Disney also operates theme parks in Tokyo and Paris apart from its home operations in the U.S.

Shanghai was an attractive candidate for Disney to build its next theme park with its 20 million people and lots of tourists. Disney has held negotiations for a theme park with Chinese authorities for years. But an agreement was only finalized last year.

The company’s Parks and Resorts unit, which runs its theme parks, is responsible for 25 percent of its total sales.

Posted by Kade Quinn on Saturday November 06 2010, 11:34 AM EST. Ref: Reuter. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Featured News, Travel. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0