Universal Studios is exploring the possibility of building a theme park in southern China, possibly providing competition to a Disneyland set to open in Hong Kong in 2005, executives said yesterday.
Officials in Shenzhen have been in talks with Universal Studios for months, said Zhang Yuhua, a marketing executive at the Shenzhen Tourism Bureau.
"Nothing has been decided yet, but we've been liaising with them for almost a year," Zhang said by telephone, confirming reports that have appeared in the mainland Chinese press in Guangdong Province, where Shenzhen is located.
"The Shenzhen Municipal government attaches a lot of importance to this project," Zhang said. She declined to elaborate.
A Universal Studios executive in Los Angeles said the company is considering putting a theme park in southern China as "part of our very normal exploration practice around the world."
The company is conducting a feasibility study to "take a serious look at the area," the Universal Studios executive said, speaking only on condition of anonymity.
"It is to formalize the opportunity to get the information we need to determine if this is something viable or not," the executive said. The Universal Studios executive was unable to say whether Shenzhen would be the location of the park, however. Universal Studios operates theme parks in Florida, California, Japan and Spain.
The Chinese newspaper Yuegang Xinxi Bao reported that the Shenzhen Tourism Bureau plans to make the theme park one of the highlights of the boomtown's plan to reinvent itself as a major tourist and conference center in order to compete with Hong Kong.
That strategy would be familiar to Hong Kong officials who are seeking ways to rejuvenate the territory's economy, in part because it lost most of its manufacturing base to China.
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