South China Mall, a man-made miracle

Quote:>

Dongguan (China): Christmas is just around the corner and the malls in the US are jampacked with shoppers. However, it's a different story in China, which is home to some of the biggest malls in the world. Having attractions including FranceÂ's Arc de Triomphe to the statues outside the pyramids in Egypt, the South China Mall can also guarantee a gondola ride just like that in Italy. "You can never build things too big in China. We are now one of the world's man-made miracles,Â" vice president, South China Mall, King Chen says. It is not quite like the Great Wall of China but the Â'great mallÂ' is larger than six football fields and three times the size of the Mall of America, the mother of all malls. Mega retail centres including the South China Mall are cropping up all over China with seven of the ten largest expected to be here by 2010, as economy has boomed. "The Chinese people are getting richer, buying more and living better lives. We want to give them a place to go,Â" says Chen. However, in spite of having amusement parks, children shows and replicas of seven cities like Venice and Hollywood, what are missing are the stores in the mall. The mall had been open for a little less than a year and the managers had hoped to fill this mall with hundreds of shops but it is nearly empty now. Unlike the US, where mall operators sign on retailers before they construct a mall, the company here built the mall first and is still waiting for retailers to show. "Many of the malls that are being developed are simply too large and essentially supply of space is getting ahead of demand for space so many of these malls simply fail to address the real demand that is present in China today,Â" says real estate developer, Morgan Parker. However, the operator is not afraid of potentially choppy waters. "We have built it so the retailers will come,Â" Chen says. And after all, the mall is in China where the economy is exploding and nearly everyone believes the future is bright.

>http://www.ibnlive.com/news/south-ch...e/29062-2.html

i saw a report on the news here about it - they were like its the only mall in the world that has no stores the reporter was walking all over showing the empty stores

u can see the report here: http://www.ibnlive.com/videos/29062/...e-miracle.html>