(Ecns.cn) – Thanks to its numerous land reclamation projects Dalian has made a profit from land sales of up to 100 billion yuan ($15.46 billion) in 2011, the growth of which ranks it first in China. As a city with the longest coastline in the country, Dalian is now launching a "great leap forward" to reclaim land from the sea – at the expense of precious ecological resources.
On August 8, 2011, when typhoon Muifa approached Dalian, the Fujia Petrochemical Plant making paraxylene was breached by heavy rain and high waves, resulting in a panic of poison leakage in the city. The plant is built on the southern part of the Dalian peninsula, from which a land reclamation project can clearly be seen.
Most of Dalian's sea-reclamation projects are located by Jinzhou Bay. Among them, the most spectacular is the ongoing "Shimao Royal Dagon Project," which covers an area of 1,400 hectares and is planned to include a man-made island shaped like a dragon.
Five kilometers south along the same coastline, another project called "East Bay of the Bohai Sea" is already selling its first phase of model homes. However, they are only a precursor to an overall 980-hectare commercial and residential real estate property.
Dalian began its land reclamation project about 14 years ago. The city's flagship Xinghai Square was built on a 114-hectare tract of reclaimed land, the largest municipal square in Asia. Since 2005, with an investment of 4 trillion yuan ($618.4 billion) in 2008, the coastal city has embarked a massive campaign of land reclamation.
No more land, so sell the sea
In 2010, revenue from land sales reached 100 billion yuan ($15.46 billion) in Dalian, three times that of 2009. The growth ranked first in the country, with total revenue ranking third, following closely behind Beijing and Shanghai. A large part of the revenue was contributed by Dalian's Puwan New Area and Donggang Business District reclamation projects.
Over half of the Donggang Business District was reclaimed from the sea. The investment for the city's business base, financial center and housing for high-skilled personnel was about 10 billion yuan ($1.55 billion), with profit reaching 40 billion yuan ($6.18 billion).
The Puwan New Area sold five tracts of land to the Vanke Group in 2010 at an average price of 600,000 yuan ($92,760) per hectare, even though the cost was expected to be no more than 200,000 yuan ($30,920) per hectare.
Lurking behind such huge profits is the reality that there is very little land left for sale in Dalian, and management costs for the remaining land keep rising every year. Dalian's pleasant weather and geographical advantages make it a top choice for real estate investment among the three northeastern provinces of China, namely Jilin, Liaoning and Heilongjiang.
So it should come as no surprise that the government wants to reclaim more land from the sea. According to statistics released by the State Oceanic Administration, Liaoning Province has been limited to 3,000 hectares of coastal land for reclamation in 2011, but the actual reclamation plan for this year is 100,000 hectares.
