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Some 50 Chinese enterprises have shown strong interest to buy or rent the Asian Business Port, a new business park to be developed by the ABP (China) Holdings Group Limited in London, said ABP Chairman Xu Weiping.
The Beijing-based real estate developer ABP inked a 1 billion pound ($1.51 billion) deal with London Mayor Boris Johnson on May 29 to develop a 14-hectare complex of offices and shops at the 130-year-old Royal Albert Dock, near London City Airport.
The ABP has started its business in the Chinese capital since 2003. In Beijing’s southwestern Fengtai district, an area seen as backward in the past, some 400 buildings have been set up in the Advanced Business Park there, serving as regional headquarters of domestic State-owned and private companies.
It then thrived in Shenyang, capital of Northeast China’s Liaoning province and Qingdao, in East China’s Shandong province in recent four years and it plans to build a project in Haining, East China’s Zhejiang province.
Its investment in the new project represented as one of UK’s largest inbound investment this year, the company said.
According to Xu, the first phase of the project will begin in the second half next year and some 80-100 buildings will be built within two years.
Among them, Xu expected, some 30-40 percent will be sold, while the rest be rented. The ABP now saw its net asset hit 14.9 billion yuan ($2.4 billion) and has a loan of 600 million yuan, the chairman said.
ABP will inject 30 percent of the capital to the new project, while some other 30-40 percent will be channeled by market financing including private equity and trust, and the rest by its sales revenue.
Xu said, shortly after the ABP announced the project, many PE companies are keenly interested in the Asian Business Port and are in close contact with ABP.
Contact the writers at wangsujuan@chinadaily.com.cn and yangcheng@chinadaily.com.cn
