Highlights

Shanghai may greet Obama with Disney park deal

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-10-28 21:29

SHANGHAI/LOS ANGELES; With US President Barack Obama due to visit China next month, speculation is swirling Walt Disney Co may finally be about to announce a long-awaited deal to build a theme park in Shanghai.

Disney and the Shanghai government have been waiting since January for Beijing's approval to move forward with what would be the country's second Disneyland, after a Hong Kong park opened in 2005 to a string of operational problems and lacklustre attendance.

"Beijing has approved the project. Now it's up to Shanghai and Disney to work out the plan and make this thing happen," a Shanghai government source familar with the situation told Reuters on Wednesday.

The source asked not to be identified before a deal was made public, while spokespeople from Disney and the Shanghai government said they had nothing to announce at this time.

By building in Shanghai, the company that brought Mickey Mouse and Toy Story to the big screen would be tapping a huge consumer market and growing personal wealth in one the country's modern cities.

Media reports have placed the cost of the park around $3.6 billion.

Disney would also aim to grab mainland money-making chances that have tended to elude it in Hong Kong, where its fifth resort was built in 2005.

Anticipation is riding high that good news on Disney will be timed to coincide with Obama's visit to China from November 15 to 18 -- granting Disney its decade-old wish to locate a theme park on the mainland of the world's most populous country.

Analysts said a Disney agreement could be a feel-good bilateral story, highlighting US cultural influence and an investment that does not entail US job losses in the manufacturing sector.

China would get a boost to its leisure sector and to domestic demand as it tries to trim its dependence on exports, which left it vulnerable during the financial crisis, wrote Gong Weisong, an editor at the Shanghai Securities News.

"For a big country, besides GDP, soft power is also very important, and developing a culture industry has great commercial value," he wrote in a front-page commentary on Wednesday that said the time was right to go ahead with the Disney project.