Jonathan Lassen wrote:
>Actually if you visit a glitzy city like Shanghai and then visit a
>rural inland area (or suburb!) you very well may come away with the
>impression of 'neo-colony.'
Financial Times - September 27, 2005
Wheel of fortune for wealthy Chinese By Jim Pickard in London
Affluent business people will each be invited to pay $100,000 (¤83,000, £56,000) a year to belong to a Shanghai private members' club located inside the biggest Ferris wheel in the world.
The club will be the most expensive in China, according to Xu Qun, chairman of Zhejiang Huamen, the property company behind the scheme.
Work on the Shanghai Star, in a rundown area about 3km north of the Bund waterfront, is set to start in May and be completed in three years' time.
The club, which will be a lava-lamp shaped building set within the wheel, will offer one of the best views in the city to its 300-400 members. Access to the restaurants, bars and meeting rooms of the five-storey club will be through an elevator. Mr Xu said he was in talks with Planet Hollywood, the leisure group, about operating the club.
The entry charge is a sign of the growing wealth of China, which is rapidly emerging as the economic powerhouse of Asia. Merrill Lynch recently estimated that the country now had 300,000 dollar millionaires - a figure that others believe may be "conservative".
The Shanghai Star is one of a number of giant Ferris wheels being planned across the world in cities such as Moscow and Singapore. It has been designed with the help of the technical team behind the London Eye, which has become one of the biggest tourist attractions in the UK since opening in January 2000.
Mr Xu said the group was in talks with US groups to raise extra financing. But he insisted the company had enough money - from six Chinese banks - to proceed with the Rmb2.8bn (£195m) project.
The Star is one of a number of projects set to raise Shanghai's profile ahead of the 2010 Expo event, with engineers already at work on the world's tallest building and longest suspension bridge in the city.