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At first, it seemed a fantastic notion. When Beijing officials in the late 1990s announced that they would build a new "Asian Manhatten," a Central Business District (CBD), Chaoyang District in eastern Beijing, the vision underlying it could only be envisioned as with a dream.

Yet, the dream is coming true, even through some long-term residents

of Beijing may even recall some scoffing at the very possibility.

The pace of the Beijing Central Business District's development in Chaoyang District is accelerating, forever altering Beijing's skyline and its place in history.

In a September 2000 issue of Business Beijing, Ke Huanzhang, former president of the Beijing City Construction Planning Institute, anticipating China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), said the CBD would be "mainly devoted to tertiary industries, including finance, insurance, information commerce and cultural industries" and would quickly become "a new growth engine of the capital's economy."

Nothing has changed in the vision, but plenty has happened on the ground.

Fantastic gleaming skyscrapers now stand where once there were grimy factories, poor shanties or "cookie-cutter" apartment buildings with gloomy cement facades lining dead-end streets. Light chases darkness from the districts highways and byways, and consumers, foreign or domestic, can find just about anything their hearts desire.

But there's more, much more, coming that will ensure Chaoyang and the CBD's place as a window or a bridge for foreign corporations and individuals who want to do business in China.

Next up, joining the pillar financial services industry in the district, is the so-called "culture innovation industry," which will be emphasized in the next phase of the CBD's development and which will be highlighted in the upcoming Seventh Beijing CBD International Business Festival opening up in September.

According to advance notices, Chaoyang District, with the CBD at its core, is about to change the face of the cultural scene in Beijing, particularly in the areas of film and TV production and transactions; as an advertising centre; and as a centre for publishing, distribution and copyright matters.

Cultural Innovation Highlighted

Its first "Cultural Innovation Industrial Exhibition'' has been listed as a key event in the Seventh Beijing CBD International Business Festival.

Tong Keke, a deputy governor of Chaoyang District, said cultural issues will be a major topic of discussion during four forums at the business festival. The forums are: the CBD International Forum; the International Forum 2006 on Urban Public Management; the Cultural Innovational Industrial Development Forum and the 2006 Chinese Cities' Forum Beijing Summit.

The business festival comes at a time when Chaoyang District is focusing on the development of its new Olympic Central District, Beijing CBD and Wangjing High-tech Industrial District and as it is also fostering its CBD Cultural Media Area; Chaoyang Park Fashion Cultural Area; the Beijing Happy Valley theme park; Sanlitun-Gongti Fashion Cultural Street; the Modern Olympic Sports Cultural Central Area; the Sanjianfang International Comic Cultural Industrial Area; the Gaojing Film and TV Media Garden; the Dahuan Cultural Area; the Wenyuhe Green Ecology Corridor and other areas with specific cultural characteristics.

Culture and Media to be Pillar of Beijing CBD

The Beijing CBD will become a media-intensive hub. It will be composed of eight sub-centres, each with a different, specific purpose: print media, TV and films, digital media, advertising, books and audio-visual products distribution, media education and animation, cultural innovation, conventions and exhibitions and media services.

The local CBD authority has drafted a blueprint integrating its cultural industry based on "three centres": centres for film and TV production operations and transactions, advertising, and publishing, distribution and copyright business activities.

The district is also expected to boost the growth of cultural and entertainment services in neighbouring areas and to support the export of China's cultural products.

The Seventh Beijing CBD International Business Festival

With the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games rapidly approaching and with China's services and trade sectors opening even more to the outside world, Beijing's Chaoyang District, the main venue for the 29th Olympiad and the 13th Paralympic Games and home of the Beijing CBD, is receiving much more attention from the world. With the combined purposes of implementing the 11th Five-Year programmes of Beijing Municipality and Chaoyang District, the Seventh Beijing CBD International Business Festival is guided by the idea of "enhancing urban management, welcoming the grand occasion of the Olympic Games and accelerating scientific development." It will try to achieve its goals of "implementing Chaoyang District's functional orientation, upgrading its urban management level, speeding up the concentration and development of certain industries and strengthening the comprehensive competitive power of Beijing."

Relying on the planning principles of "focusing on the subject, upgrading the level, creating the environment, attaching importance to the actual effect and presenting vigorousness," nine activities in two parts have been included as high-level seminars, theme exhibitions and business cultural activities. The festival's organizers hope it will help improve the development of its three functional areas: the Olympics, the CBD and its Electronic City in a comprehensive way.

Officials hope to enhance Chaoyang District's functions as an important window for international exchanges, a major integrating force for the economies of China and the world, a developed area of foreign services and a centre for modern sports culture and a high-tech industrial base. During the business festival, a series of theme activities are scheduled to be held.

New CBD Business Centre Pattern Forming

Shin Kong Mitsukoshi, the biggest department store in Taiwan, has officially declared it is partnering with the Beijing Hualian Group to create its first Beijing flagship store in China Central Place in the CBD. Top world retailer Wal-Mart will open an outlet in the Wanda Plaza at the end of 2006. Together with the New World Department Store, the Shopping Mall in the LG Twin Towers, the Yintai Centre, World Trade Center Phase III and other commercial facilities, by 2008, there will be at least seven large-scale retail facilities, shopping malls and supermarkets, in the CBD.

The CBD has huge commercial potential.

Seventy percent of the foreign-funded enterprises in Beijing are located in the CBD, along with 65 percent of white collar workers and 80 percent of the city's high-level returnee managers. Sixty-five percent of the multinational offices in China and 95 percent of those in Beijing, 90 percent of the foreign banks and eight of the ten largest hotels in Beijing all contribute to a strong clustering effect. Along with China's entry into the WTO, financial institutions such foreign-funded banks and insurance companies in the CBD have blossomed, and their employees are potential consumers of the retail business in the World Trade Center (WTC) area. The WTC's stores feature first-class, worldwide brands such as Louis Vuitton, CERRUTI, Cartier, Kent & Curwen, Ermenegildo Zegna, Givenchy and many others. It has become the leader of fashion in Beijing.

The scale of the CBD's business construction is growing. Last year, nearly 300,000 square metres of new space for business operations was added to the area, most of which was destined to be used by merchandisers in the Central International Trade Center, Century Fortune Centre, China Trade Center and in the Wanda Plaza. As of 2008, among the construction projects planned for the Beijing CBD, at least 19 contained business plans with scales involving more than one million square metres. Shin Kong Mitsukoshi, which will open in early 2007, will offer international luxuries and international designer brands and some first class brands, including GUCCI, Prada and others. Aside from Shin Kong Mitsukoshi, nearly all the world's leading retailers will seek to establish themselves in the CBD in pursuit of its high-end consumers.

 The Yintai Centre will offer international brands such as Chanel and Armani and Wanda Plaza will have a "high-end goods" department store with an area of more than 10,000 square metres.

Another significant feature of the CBD will be its Pedestrian Commercial Street. Now under construction, it will integrate many kinds of functions. With a four-hectare historical and humanistic park at its core in the World Trade Center business circle, the pedestrian commercial street will become a major commercial and entertainment centre in the CBD. The "the golden cross" (Jianguomenwai Dajie at the East Third Ring Road) is also positioning itself as a "humanistic landmark of the CBD." These projects will be connected using corridors that will feature art and other artistic amusements for passers-by, while freeing pedestrians from the typical noise and clamour of street-level traffic.

Financial Service

At the Ninth China Beijing International High-Tech Expo, which was held in May 2006, Chaoyang District Governor Chen Gang made a speech in which he said the Jinzhan Service Garden would be created to provide services such as a data centre, a call centre, disaster protection centre, financial-card centre, training service centre and other kinds of service centres for financial organizations. Chen said the district would "construct a financial service area and serve the capital's financial industry."

He said this was in the spirit of providing better background financial services for central enterprises stationed in Beijing as well as foreign-invested financial services enterprises, as proposed by Beijing Municipal Government.

Chaoyang District has developed rapidly because of its increasingly well-established development pattern for the modern service industry. This pattern views the international financial industry's presence in the district as a major opportunity and focus.