Huang Guangyu, known as the richest man in China, announced in Beijing Thursday that his company -- Beijing Gome Real Estate Co Ltd -- would invest as much as three billion yuan (US$8 million) in establishing the world's largest "Hi-tech Experience Center" in the Central Business District (CBD) of the new district of Fengtai Science Park Headquarter in south Beijing.

In April, Huang Guangyu won the bid of right to use a 353,900-square-meter plot in the CBD at a cost of 805 million yuan (US$97 million), making it Beijing's biggest bidding and auction project in 2005. The plot is expected to be utilized to build the "Global Hi-tech Experience Center," a landmark of the best architectural quality in south Beijing, with an investment of over three billion yuan.

The project will include a large shopping mall, an international apartment hotel, a conference and exhibition center and other supporting facilities. Upon completion, the Center will be able to meet the living and consumption demands of nearly 500,000 senior business executives and neighboring residents. Moreover, its business will radiate to Bohai Sea economic zones and even the whole country.

The most eye-catching part of the Center is that there will spring up on the plot an over-100,000-square-meter "Global Hi-tech Experience Center of Electronics Products and Electrical Appliances," the largest of its kind in the world. It will create a platform for displays of the most advanced electronics products and electrical appliances for the most well-known manufacturers and consumers in the world. Besides, a 30,000-square-meter Gome shopping mall of electrical appliances and audio-video products will be built in close connection with the Experience Center and will become the biggest flagship shop among Gome's chain stores.

(Chinanews May 20, 2005)