Disney hopes to build 1st park on Chinese mainland

The Walt Disney Company and the Shanghai municipal government have signed a project proposal to build the first Disney park on the Chinese mainland.

Under the proposal, the entertainment giant will take a 43 percent stake in Shanghai Disneyland. The other 57 percent will be owned by a joint-venture holding company, owned by the Shanghai government.

The total investment will be about 24 billion RMB. The first phase will include a theme park, a hotel and a shopping center, covering an area of 1.5 square kilometers.

It will open in 2014, at the earliest. By the conclusion of the whole project, a sprawling complex will cover an area of six to eight square kilometers.

Disney already has a theme park in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. As the company's second Asian venture, the Hong Kong Disneyland has received sponsorship of local government and business has been booming.

Analysts in Shanghai are confident that the park there will surpass the Hong Kong success and contribute trillions of RMB to the local GDP.