By Herman Lai, posted Apr 8, 2011 at 12:01 PM, 508 views,

Shanghai Disneyland Held Groundbreaking Ceremony

Previously, we intimated about Shanghai Disneyland construction to begin soon and that day has arrived. Walt Disney Co. and its Chinese government-owned business partners held groundbreaking ceremony in Shanghai Disneyland this morning, as well as implying the company has successfully stepped into the ground of China.

The Shanghai Disneyland project took the company well over a decade of negotiation with the Chinese government. The project includes over $24.5 billion yuan of investment and expected to open in five years times. Walt Disney Co. will possess 43% of the profits and costs in this project, the remain is belongs to its partner known as the Shanghai Shendi Group Co. Ltd. At the moment, there are five Disneyland in the world, located in California, Florida, Paris, Tokyo, Japan and Hong Kong respectively. Shanghai Disneyland will become its sixth park.

Disney Chief Executive Robert Iger also said,

“We’d love to develop multiple other businesses in China, certainly in television, and we’re growing our games presence. We’re growing our retail presence. We’re growing our English-language learning presence. None of it is directly connected to this development, other than we view China overall as a great market.”

Besides, we can see Walt Disney has a very large ambition in the other markets of China as well. However, can they go through all sort of challenges from the Chinese government?

Source: Xinhua via WSJ