SHENZHEN, China (7 Dec 2004) -- The scrapyard may be beckoning for the Minsk, a mothballed Soviet-era aircraft carrier whose previous date with the breaker's yard was put off by a detour to a Shenzhen theme park. Minsk Aircraft Carrier World, one of the hottest tourist attractions in Shenzhen, is seeking a ''white knight'' to rescue it from bankruptcy after the financial shipwreck of its parent, D'Long International Strategic Investment. Shenzhen officials have actively enlisted in the hunt for new investors, foreign or domestic, hoping the Minsk will cheat death again to occupy a place of honour in the the entertainment and tourism hub they plan to develop along the eastern shore of the Special Economic Zone. Minsk World is reported to have defaulted on a 200 million yuan (HK$187.9 million) loan from China Construction Bank (CCB), one of the big four state-owned lenders. Since the Guangzhou Maritime Court froze its assets, it has been under the trusteeship of China Huarong Asset Management. The chance to clamber over one of the world's most formidable warships has attracted more than five million visitors and generated 450 million yuan in revenue since the theme park opened in September 2000. Minsk World ranks among Shenzhen's top four attractions, averaging 2,000 visitors on weekdays and as many as 5,000 per day at the weekend. The recent National Day holiday was a bonanza, with 110,000 visitors pushing through the turnstiles. The admission fee is 110 yuan. | | Click on photo to expand image of Minsk The 42,000-tonne, 275-metre-long carrier once carried 42 fighter planes as the flagship of the former Soviet Union's Pacific Fleet. After the Soviet Union dissolved, Russia was unable to manage the upkeep, and the carrier was decommissioned in 1994. In 1998, it was purchased by an unidentified Chinese businessman after its weaponry was stripped off in South Korea. It then passed to the theme park's owner, D'Long Group, which is based in the northwest Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Brothers Tang Wanxin and Tang Wanli, who set up the company, were seen as paragons of the new entrepreneur class until early this year, when their complex funding mechanism based on dubious stock transactions ground to a halt. The park's managers are playing down the crisis. A spokesman said management hoped to find new investors before March, when a court will hear CCB's request to wind up the company. SOURCE - The Standard |
