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UK engineers to help China build eco-cities
(AFP)
Updated: 2005-11-06 08:25
LONDON - British engineers will this week sign a contract with Beijing to
design and build a string of so-called 'eco-cities' in China, a newspaper
reported.
Coinciding with a state visit to Britain by Chinese President Hu Jintao,
London-based consulting firm Arup will announce that it has clinched a deal to
work on the self-sustaining urban centres equivalent to the size of a large
western capital, The Observer weekly newspaper said.
Arup has already signed up for one such project near Shanghai, said the
paper, which added that the eco-cities are regarded as a prototype for urban
living in over-populated and polluted environments as well as a magnet for
investment funds in China, whose economy is booming.
The signing ceremony was expected to take place at the official residence of
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, with the partly state-owned Shanghai
Industrial Investment Company acting on behalf of Beijing.
"We are going to help establish a model of how a sustainable city works, but
it must also be a viable financial proposition in the long term to attract
international investment," the paper quoted Peter Head, the Arup director in
charge of the first eco-city Dongtan, as saying.
Head added: "It is no gimmick. It is being led at the highest levels of the
Chinese government."
The Dongtan development aims to build a city three-quarters the size of
Manhattan by 2040, with the first phase accommodating some 50,000 people, the
paper said. Up to four more eco-cities will be built, though exact locations
have yet to be revealed, it added.
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