Casino tycoon wife Angela Leong launches a 10 bilion pataca theme park in Cotai
Macau, China, 12 Nov - Casino tycoon Stanley Ho Hung Sun's fourth wife, Angela Leong On Kei, announced Thursday the launch of a non-gaming theme park to be built near the government-owned Macau Dome in Cotai.
However, she stressed that the 10.4 billion pataca (US$ 1.3 billion)project was still awaiting government approval.
Leong is a member of Macau's Legislative Assembly, an executive director of her husband's casino company S JM and a director of his umbrella company STDM.
Leong, director of Macau Theme Park and Resort Limited, told a press conference that construction would start once the project has got the government's green light.
According to The Macau Post Daily the integrated complex comprising six 3- to 5-star hotels and several shopping malls will take a decade to pomplete, with the first phase featuring a water park, complete with an indoor beach and amusement rides, the second phase boasting a 4D cinema, and the third phase including an equestrian centre, a hippodrome and watersports shows.
Irrespective of her executive position with her husband's casino company, Leong insisted that the theme park was her own personal investment that does not involve SJM.
"Capital is not a problem," said Leong, "Some diehard investors, who want to build a prosperous tourism industry in Macau, have already shown interest in the project. The banks are out biggest support. I'm very confident about the project coming along."
According to Leong, the government granted her the 200,000-square-metre plot of land in Cotai in 2006 but the project failed to get off the ground due to the global credit crunch in 2008.
While a land premium of about 200 million patacas has already been settled, the plot is expected to cost no less than two billion patacas.
It was reported in 2004 that a theme park at the property was expected to be opened in 2007 and that it was to be managed and designed by a Japanese company to "complement" rather than compete with Disneyland Hong Kong, which opened in 2006.
"Now's the time. The gaming industry is developing, and non-gaming tourism projects need di-versification. With the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge, the light-rail and so many other projects coming along (in Macau) to push development in the Pearl River Delta, it's the right time to start (the project) now," Leong said.
The whole project was expected to attract about 2.5 million "family tourists" per year, and that it would help raise Macau's tourists' average length of stay from the current average of just 1.51 nights.
In addition, about 7,500 jobs are expected to be created during the construction period, and about 9,000 people are expected to be hired once the complex is in full operation.
According to Leong, 9.4 billion patacas of the investment has been earmarked for the project's hotel development and one billion patacas for the theme park development. Each of the three phases is planned to take 2 1/2 to three years to complete.
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