Posts Tagged ‘foreign direct investment’

Disney Goes To Shanghai

Monday, November 9th, 2009

After 20 years of negotiation, the Walt Disney Company will build its first Chinese theme park in Shanghai.

  • The opening of such a large American theme park will have many cultural and financial implications for Shanghai, a city proud of its rich cultural history.
  • The park will be bigger than the original Disneyland in Anaheim, California, and will be similar in style to the Paris and Hong Kong parks.
  • The goal of opening such a park is to create demand for Disney products (TV shows, movies, games, characters, toys, boardgames, DVDs and plenty more) among China’s 1.3 billion citizens.

Facts & Figures

  • The park will cost $3.5 billion dollars to build, will occupy at least 1,000 acres of land in the city’s Pudong district, and is set to open in 5-6 years.
  • Only 20 foreign films (often censored) are permitted to be shown in Chinese theaters every year.
  • Disney already sells Disney merchandise at 6,000 locations in China.

Best Quote

“It’s a signal that now they will tolerate a certain kind of Western investment” – Orville Schell, Director of the Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations