Gyeonggi’s foreign investment attraction delegation headed by Governor Kim Moon-soo is visiting Shanghai, China from February 24 to 25.

On the first day, February 24, the delegation visited the Shanghai Disneyland office and looked around the Disneyland construction site and agreed to do its best to attract the USKR project into its province.

The Gyeonggi Provincial delegation plans to study the progress of Shanghai Disneyland and the ripple effect it will have once the construction is complete and try to find solutions on how to move the USKR project forward that has been at a standstill for some time.

Shanghai Disneyland will be built on an area of 3.9㎢ in the Chuansha Town, Pudong District of Shanghai City. It will be the second Disneyland in China and the largest in scale. The total investment amount is approximately 24.5 billion yuan (US$4 billion). It will be the 6th Disneyland in the world and the 3rd in Asia.

The Chinese government has provided a long-term lease for the land at a low price. Shanghai Shendi Group, which is a state-owned company, holds 57% of the shares and Walt Disney holds the remaining 43% shares of the total capital of 10 billion yuan.

In addition to the capital contribution, the Chinese government plans to fund 15 billion yuan(2.6 trillion won) towards the project cost, 7.1 billion yuan for subway facilities and 100 billion yuan for infrastructure construction near the site.

Shanghai Disneyland estimates potential visitors from the Yangtze River Delta area to be around 300 million. It expects to attract around 7~10 million visitors annually from China and the neighboring countries.

Governor Kim said, “The USKR project has been at a standstill for more than 7 years due to the high reclamation cost of the land. But Shanghai Disneyland is moving forward smoothly with strong support from the government. We will take into consideration all the strengths of the Shanghai Disneyland project and try to find solutions to move the USKR project forward”.

Earlier, Governor Kim paid a visit to the Gyeonggi Business Center in Shanghai to be briefed on the local conditions and to encourage the employees.

The branch office of Gyeonggi Business Center was set up on March 2010 on the 11th floor of Shanghai Mart to vitalize the small and medium-sized businesses in Gyeonggi Province. Some of its responsibilities include overseas marketing, supporting local exhibitions, such as international G-FAIRs, managing trade promotion missions and inviting local buyers to Korea for export consultation meetings.