SHANGHAI is planning to double its exhibition space to 15 million square metres by 2015 as part of its 12th Five-Year Plan (2011 to 2015), with 80 per cent of the area devoted to hosting international trade fairs.
The government has started building an expo centre in the Hongqiao commercial hub in Qingpu District. The 500,000m2 complex will take two years to complete and will cost some RMB23 billion (US$3.6 billion), making it the world’s largest expo centre.
Key cultural facilities are also being built and will boost the number of unique venue options for DMCs. The World Expo Park will offer four new venues – China Art Palace, Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art (name to be finalised), the Shanghai World Expo Museum and Shanghai Children’s Art Theater.
The World Expo China Pavilion will be converted into the China Art Palace, with an extension to be built, enlarging the facility to 70,000m2 worth of exhibition space, 12,000m2 more than the original size.
The Shanghai World Expo Museum will be located on the Puxi site of the World Expo Park.
The Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art will be at the site of the Expo Urban Future Pavilion.
The Shanghai Children’s Art Theater will sit on the site of the futuristic Expo SAIC-GM Pavilion. It will feature an IMAX theatre projection system and house four audience zones.
The Shanghai World Expo Exhibition & Convention Center, located nearby, welcomes the new development. Sales supervisor Julia Zhu said: “We’re targeting different things, and so far, we regard this as an opportunity rather than competition. We’re focusing on professional exhibitions, and of course, our venue has more exhibition space. We’re still putting emphasis on providing better service and convenience to the organisers so that their exhibitions can run smoothly at our venue.”
By Patricia Wee
