Thursday, January 20, 2011

Asia's largest exhibition venue planned in Shanghai

We have been trying to get more details on a massive new exhibition venue planned in Shanghai. The project was announced at the framework agreement singing ceremony of the “National Convention Project” in Shanghai last week involving the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) and Shanghai Municipal Government.

Also under the terms of the agreement, state-owned China Foreign Trade Centre (Group) and the Shanghai Expo Group will set-up a 60:40 joint venture as the major investors of the project.

The agreement states that the project’s objective is to construct a new exhibition hub – although it is described as a "MICE hub" in some articles in the local press. The facility will be located in Shanghai’s Hongqiao district.

The preliminary plan details a site with an area of 1.04 km2 featuring exhibition halls, logistics facilities and other MICE-related amenities. A budget of US$3.5 billion was announced as part of the agreement, although there are no concrete details regarding the completion date.

The government is reportedly pushing for construction to start by the end of 2011; however, several sources have reported that logistical issues such as the demolition of existing buildings and the relocation of tenants at the current site have yet to be finalised.

We have highlighted in red our best approximation of the proposed site on the map below. The site is split into a north and south section by Xujing Middle Road, extending west to Zhuguang Road and east to Laigang Road. The exhibition venue, which may be as large as 500,000 m2, will be located in the north section of the site.

Situated directly west of the Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport and also near to the Hongqiao Rail Station (circled in black on the map), there will be a total of three rail/subway lines serving the exhibition hub. Xujing East Station is already completed on one of the lines and further extensions to other lines will reportedly be confirmed in the next planning phase.

If the venue is constructed according to the announced plans (the plans do still appear to be quite fluid), it will be 500,000 m2 which will dwarf the 338,000 m2 Chinese Import & Export Commodities Fair Ground – Pazhou Complex in Guangzhou - currently the largest exhibition venue in Asia and is also owned by the China Foreign Trade Centre Group.

According to BSG’s database, the current top five exhibition centres in Shanghai are:

The top ten exhibition centres in Asia, based on total gross indoor size are:

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