China Town to be built in Romania

The expression “Chinese goods” has become a nickname for poor quality and cheap merchandise. However, not everything manufactured in China falls under this category- and several Chinese businesspeople bet on that.

They have begun to work on China Town, the largest business centre in Central and Southern Europe, which will comprise commercial, productive, entertainment and residential areas. The project is aimed to persuade the Romanians of “the real quality of Chinese products”, as the projects’ initiators claim.

The initial investment for the construction of this complex amounts to 5 million dollars and its final value will stand at 54 million dollars. Yin Xiaoping, the president of the Union of Chinese Businesspeople in Romania (UNOACR) and of Yin’s International Trading Group and Great Wall will be the main investor.

Xiaoping says he is expecting other investors, both Romanian and Chinese, to get involved in the finalisation of China Town.

The project might be completed in 4-5 years and the first stage will create more than 1,000 jobs provided the project is successful.

China Town is located south of Bucharest, near the national road linking Bucharest and Giurgiu and will take up 380,000 square metres, out of which 168,000 square metres will be the area with buildings.

Chinese say that China Town might increase the volume of trade between China and Romania by 30%.

Romania imported merchandise worth 160 million dollars from China in 2000 and exported goods worth 80 million dollars to this country.

Gabriel Ghelmegeanu, the president of Romania-China Trade Chamber says that the actual value of the products imported by Romania amounts to more than 700 million dollars.

He added that the gap between this figure and the data supplied by the statistics derives from the fact that a great amount of products is purchased through intermediaries, such as Hungary.

On the other hand, the controls repeatedly made by the police point out that a lot of Chinese merchants prefer to smuggle those particular goods.