State power company building $340m luxury office complex  

广东电网21亿顶风建豪华办公楼 被曝内有高档健身房

中央三令五申严控楼堂馆所建设，作为央企的中国南方电网广东电网公司在原有两栋办公楼能够满足生产办公需要的情况下，又以建设“广东电网生产调度中心”的名义，投资21亿多元，于今年2月开工新建总建筑面积达16万平方米的豪华办公楼。 [查看全文]

(ECNS)-- China Southern Power Grid Co Limited, one of China's two largest state-owned electric utilities, was found to have invested 2.1 billion yuan ($339 million) in building luxury office buildings, despite the fact that the company's current home has abundant vacant office space for employees, the Economic Information Daily reported on Wednesday.

Covering an area of 160,000 square meters, the complex has four buildings.

In addition to regular offices, modern facilities such as gyms, leisure centers, auditoriums, bedrooms and restaurants will make the structures similar to a luxury resort.

At the construction site in the Pazhou complex of Zhuhai district in Guangdong, a worker said the project only started one month ago.

"After being constructed, the buildings will serve as the headquarters of China Southern Power Grid, and it will also become a landmark structure for Pazhou district," the worker added.

The new office buildings are under construction in the name of "production scheduling facilities," but the number of rooms designed for production dispatching is quite limited in the building's construction plans, according to an anonymous employee at the company.

The employee also said that there are two other office buildings that are under the name of the utility. Many offices in the buildings are still vacant.

To figure out why the project was launched amid a central government ban on construction of luxury office buildings, Long Jianping, vice director of the news center at the company, was contacted, but an interview request was rejected by an official who said he was out on vacation.