Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | November 2013 12 COVER STORY zone” similar to one piloted in Shanghai in September (and which, interestingly enough, will host a Disneyland of its own, slated to open in 2015). Hengqin’s zone will be much larger, however, as plans call for bundling the New Area with Qianhai in Shenzhen and Nansha in Guangzhou and with Hong Kong and Macau at some level to form a kind of super-FTZ, the first of its kind in China. Currently, there are 56 projects under development on the island representing investments of more than RMB226 billion. These include commercial development, transportation infrastructure and water and power generation. On the commercial end, the government is actively promoting seven sectors: travel and leisure, logistics, commodities and business services, financial services, “culture and creativity” (130,000 square meters was recently offered to Hong Kong bidders for a film studio), health care, technology and education. The media has mostly focused on the latter, embodied by the new campus of the University of Macau, which has moved from Macau’s Taipa island to 94,500 square meters just south of the immigration checkpoint at the Lotus Bridge, a showplace 20 times the size of the old campus and funded by the Macau government to the tune of US$1.28 billion. It will include a major hotel school and plans are to build it into one of the pre-eminent institutions for commercial gambling research in the world. It also will provide an intriguing test of China’s “One Country-Two Systems” policy. The campus is considered Macau territory under a land lease agreement with Zhuhai and is sealed off for immigration purposes from the rest of Hengqin and therefore houses its own fire and police stations. When it opens early next year, students from Macau will travel to it via a tunnel under the Shizimen. A little over one kilometer long it will be the only legal way to enter and leave the campus, which will operate under the jurisdiction of the SAR, not the PRC, with all that implies in terms of freedom of expression and freedom from Internet censorship. The powers that be in Zhuhai have set an ambitious goal for Hengqin of RMB56 billion in gross domestic product by 2020. At that point, Chimelong will be complete in all its family-style glory. Cotai, too, will be all but built out. Only by then Macau’s development will no longer be the isolated phenomenon it largely is today. It will be knit into an integrated social and economic enterprise spanning the 11 cities of the Pearl River Delta and encompassing more than 55 million souls. What thatmeans, too, is that Hengqinwill The powers that be in Zhuhai have set an ambitious goal for Hengqin of RMB56 billion in gross domestic product by 2020. At that point, Chimelong will be complete. Cotai, too, will be all but built out. Only by then Macau’s development will no longer be the isolated phenomenon it largely is today. It will be knit into an integrated social and economic enterprise spanning the 11 cities of the Pearl River Delta and encompassing more than 55 million souls.