Wanda to invest Rmb95bn in Yunnan to build 20 projects

Wanda Group signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Yunnan province on September 26. In the next four years, Wanda Group will invest Rmb95 billion in Yunnan to build 20 new Wanda Plazas and cultural tourism projects. This, combined with previous investments, will bring Wanda’s total investment in Yunnan to Rmb130 billion.

According to the cooperation agreement, Wanda Group will continue to invest in Kunming to build Wanda Plazas and cultural tourism projects, and will enter Yuxi, Dali, Honghe and other prefecture-level cities of Yunnan on a full scale to build Wanda Plazas in an effort to bring Wanda Plazas to all parts of Yunnan province.

Wanda’s investments are mostly concentrated in Yunnan's third- and fourth-tier cities, which will significantly enhance commercial activities in these areas, encourage people to spend, increase stable sources of tax revenue for local governments and create stable jobs in the urban service sector.

Since its entry into Yunnan in 2002, Wanda Group has invested a total of Rmb35 billion to build Kunming Xishan Wanda Plaza, Xishuangbanna Resort and other important projects. Specifically, the Rmb15 billion Xishuangbanna Resort is the third large-scale cultural tourism project built by Wanda, and also the cultural tourism project involving the largest-ever investment and built to the highest standards in Southwest China. It has elevated tourism in Yunnan and the development of Xishuangbanna to an unprecedented height and is a landmark project in the transformation and upgrading of tourism in Yunnan.

In early 2015, Wanda Group started its fourth transformation since its founding, with the aim of transforming itself from a real estate-oriented enterprise into a modern service-oriented enterprise. Wanda’s business transformation is centered on the implementation of an asset-light strategy in order to speed up the development of Wanda Plazas and bring them to all of the cities across the country, including third- and fourth-tier cities. Since the implementation of the asset-light strategy, Wanda has signed strategic cooperation agreements with Guizhou, Guangxi, Sichuan, Liaoning, Chongqing, Henan and other provinces and cities, and contracted for more than one hundred projects, which plus the latest investment in Yunnan bring its total planned investment to Rmb775 billion. Since the asset-light strategy has progressed faster than expected, Wanda Group has decided to bring forward the completion of the transformation from 2020 to 2018, thereby dramatically accelerating the transformation.