Hong Kong Ocean Park signed loan documents worth 5.55 billion HK dollars (US$712 million) with 25 banks and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government here Tuesday to finance its re-development project.

Analysts say Ocean Park's ambitious re-development project, which is scheduled to begin later this year, may position the park as one of the world's premier marine-based theme park and help consolidate the cosmopolis' position as global tourist hub.

According to the package deal, the financing of the project includes loans of 4.2 billion HK dollars (US$734 million) from commercial banks and a loan of HK$1.4 billion from the HKSAR government.

In the commercial loans, Ocean Park also won a 15-year term loan of HK$1.4 billion guaranteed by the HKSAR government.

Bank of China (Hong Kong), DBS Bank and HSBC were Mandated Lead Arrangers and general syndication attracted a strong interest from 22 local and international commercial banks, including China Development Bank, Hang Seng Bank, the Royal Bank of Scotland and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation.

"The syndicated loan partnership signifies another important milestone for Ocean Park's re-development," Allan Zeman, Chairman of Ocean Park, said at the loans contracts signing ceremony, "We commend and value the support from the HKSAR government to reinforce Ocean Park as a must-see tourist attraction."

Describing the negotiations for loans as "long and hard," Zeman promised to lead Ocean Park into a "landmark destination" by building a "world-class, sate-of the art" marine-based theme park to help secure Hong Kong's position as global tourist hub.

The re-development project, scheduled to begin at the end of this year and be completed in 2010, is expected to bring net quantifiable economic benefits of HK$40 billion to 48 billion (US$5.1 billion to 6.2 billion) over the next 40 years and create 11,300 to 12,800 new jobs for Hong Kong.

Once completed, the re-development project will double Ocean Park's distinctive attractions from current 35 to more than 70 in 2010, according to the re-development plan.

Since its opening in January 1977 as a non-profit organization, the home-grown Ocean Park has developed itself into an attraction connecting people with the nature by attracting more than 76 million tourists by the end of last year.

Ocean Park was ranked as one of the world's 10 most popular them park by the Forbes earlier this month and was chosen by Hong Kong citizens as the city's most favorite scenic spot last year.

(Xinhua News Agency June 14, 2006)