28.8.08

New skyscraper ready for its debut


After the Olympics I'm enjoying some time off visiting some contacts in Shanghai. This amazing and lively city is getting ready for the 2010 Expo. Tomorrow we are invited to see the debut of the Shanghai World Financial Center. The world's third-tallest building and the newest addition to Shanghai's high-end office and hotel markets will open tomorrow, 14 years after the project began. However the owner is not Chinese but Minoru Mori, chairman of Mori Building Co, Japan's biggest private real estate developer.

The skyscraper is surpassed in height only by the Dubai Tower and Taipei 101 in Taiwan. Tenants so far include top Japanese financial compaines, such as Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp and Mizuho Corporate Banking as well as BNP Paribas and Commerzbank AG.

As China improves so does Japan. Perhaps their fates are somehow linked to each other.

29/08/2008