Hong Kong casino magnate Stanley Ho is considering a US$500 million plan to develop a ski resort in the northeast province of Jilin, a move that would expand his businesses beyond gambling, ferries and hotels in Macao and Hong Kong.
The Jilin Province government, whose capital Changchun will host the 2007 Asian Winter Games, approached Ho's Shun Tak Holdings Ltd. with the plan, said Angela Tsang, the company's corporate finance director.
The project "is still at a very preliminary stage of our investment review," she said.
Shun Tak's shares closed at HK$1.64 yesterday, up 3.8 percent, in Hong Kong.
Skiing is gaining popularity in China as incomes rise. For Ho, whose casinos increasingly cater to Chinese tourists, the project may offer a new way to tap their growing affluence. This year he lost his four-decade monopoly on gaming in Macau when the special administrative region government awarded licenses to Las Vegas billion-aires Steve Wynn and Sheldon Adelson.
Shun Tak has signed a letter of intent with the Jilin provincial government and Sunbase International Holdings Ltd. to build the resort, said Sunbase Senior Vice President Richard Tang. Sunbase is a private direct-investment company based in Hong Kong.
Tang confirmed the project is expected to cost US$500 million, as reported by the South China Morning Post yesterday. Another company based on China's mainland will invest in the project, he said. He declined to specify the likely shareholdings of Shun Tak, Sunbase and other partners in the investor group.
China has about 20 ski resorts, mostly in its northeast provinces. Yabuli International Ski Resort in Heilongjiang Province, next door to Jilin, claims to be the biggest. It has 11 runs exceeding 1 kilometer, with one run of 5 kilometers - Asia's longest, it claims on its Website.
Still, the 1,500 skiers-an-hour capacity of its nine lifts makes it small by international standards.
The ski centers on China's mainland, which include several locations around Beijing, rate only two stars on the Website of the Ski Club of Hong Kong, compared with four for resorts in Japan and South Korea and five for top-rated Whistler in Canada.
There are six ski centers around Beijing. The newest is the Nanshan Ski Resort, opened last month by Liu Yongxing, chairman of China's biggest feed maker, East Hope Group. Liu, the nation's eighth-wealthiest man according to Forbes magazine, spent 200 million yuan developing the resort after his 27-year-old son took up skiing while studying in the United States.
Chinese-American businesswoman Li Xiaoding is an investor in another center near the capital. China also has indoor runs on artificial snow.
A Shanghai complex boasts a 380-meter run down a gentle slope built inside a 10-hectare stadium. The center, which cost 120 million yuan to build, offers 90 minutes' skiing on weekdays for 100 yuan, including equipment, and 120 yuan at weekends.
(eastday.com December 11, 2002)
