Chinese, US firms to jointly build large auto theme park in Northeast China

LOS ANGELES - A 500-acre automobile theme park is planned to be built in Northeast China's Liaoning province jointly by Chinese and US firms.

Huaqi Investment Co Limited and Ima Design Group Inc signed intention agreement on Tuesday for their future cooperation to build the Huaqi Automotive Cultural City in Dongdaihe, which is located only several miles from the famous tourist attraction of Shan Hai Guan, the east start of the Great Wall.

The total investment of the project will reach around 7 billion yuan ($1.07 billion), said Tongwei Wei, President and CEO of Huaqi.

Ima Design, a Southern California-based firm which helped, among other customers, the Walt Disney company during the past 40 years to design and build projects in Europe, Hong Kong and Shanghai, will provide consultation and designing services for the Huaqi Automotive Cultural City project.

"We will use our experience to help Huaqi build the world-class auto park which will be the largest in China and may even be possible to be the largest in the world," Ima President William Schulz told Xinhua.

The planned auto cultural park will try to get international racing organizations involved to hold events there and have automobile-related museum, exhibitions and kids fun zone as parts of its attractions, Wei said. It is expected to attract 30 million visitors annually when the construction is completed and the park goes into full operation in three years.

"There are millions of cars running in China, so the automobile culture will be more and more important to the Chinese people," Wei said, "This project is inspired by and get benefits from the prosperity of auto culture in China."