Designed to sit near the existing Luchao Town of Nanhui District, about 30 kilometres away from the Yangshan Port, the new city, called Luchao Habour City, will feature a 2.5 kilometre man-made lake.

"We are optimizing the work of the Germany-based GMP & HPC and hope to present the final draft in May or June," said Gu Jun, an engineer of Shanghai Urban Planning and Design Research Institute.

Last July, the Municipal Planning and Management Administrative Bureau invited nine international design companies to bid for the design of the project.

Their designs, which were presented earlier this year, won wide recognition from city leaders and experts.

The exact size and population of the city remains unknown. But functionally, it will focus on developing coastal industries, storage and logistics.

Gu said the whole city will take about 20 years to complete but the first phase is expected to be finished by 2005 following the construction of the port.

"The existing Yangshan Port is limited in area and it is necessary to construct a new port ," Gu added.

Confirmed by the State Development Planning Commission, the port, with an estimated investment of 12 billion yuan (US$1.45 billion), will have five berths and will be able to handle 2 million TEUs (20-foot equivalent units) a year. A railway, an expressway and a canal will also be built in a move to ease traffic congestion.

(China Daily April 1, 2002)