Ascendas IT Park project in Dalian to cost US$200m

Flagship outfit will be built over 5-8 years in phases

(SINGAPORE) The six million sq ft Dalian Ascendas IT Park in China will cost an estimated US$200 million and will be built over five to eight years in phases.

Speaking at an event in Dalian yesterday to mark the completion of the first phase of the flagship project, Ascendas president and chief executive officer Chong Siak Ching said: ‘It will offer a fully integrated work-live-play environment and give full play to an international business lifestyle concept that we have test-bedded successfully in Singapore and India.’

The 11-storey, US$62 million first phase comprises one million sq ft of space. Ascendas said that 25 per cent of this has been taken up by tenants including Konica Minolta, Network Appliance and Dalian Hi-Think Computer Technology.

The second phase of development is expected to start early next year and to be completed by mid-2009, adding another 11-storey building with a gross floor area of about 840,000 sq ft.

The 35-ha Dalian Ascendas IT Park project could eventually have a total of six million sq ft, depending on demand, and is expected to target Dalian’s business process outsourcing (BPO), information technology outsourcing (ITO) and software R&D sectors.

Ascendas will run the park, including project management, marketing, lease management, property management, advertising and corporate services.

The chairman of Yida Group and Dalian Ascendas IT Park, Sun Yinhuan, said that the park is the first development in Dalian’s Lu Shun Nan Road software industry area. ‘This will surely facilitate the fast development of Lu Shun South Road software belt and further boost the software and IT service industry in Dalian,’ he said.

BPO is the fastest-growing sector in China’s IT services market. According to a recent report by IDC, China’s offshore BPO is expected to grow five times to almost US$7 billion by 2011 - a compounded annual growth rate of 37.9 per cent.

 

Source: Business Times 6 Sept 07