China chiefs’ chopper ride over Thanet Gateway site

A delegation from the Far East has paid a flying visit to see the site of the multi-million pound China Gateway business park where construction work is due to start next year.

The top execs were taken for a tour of the isle by helicopter, piloted by Ken Wills, boss of Commercial Group Properties, the company behind the English side of the deal to bring Chinese firms to Thanet.

The group, who arrived in Manston on Friday, included Lu Yuexing - vice governor of Pudong, a district of Shanghai that is home to many of the firms which may open factories in the new development.

The delegates met Thanet council's deputy leader Roger Latchford and chairman of the South East England Development Agency Jim Brathwaite to discuss progress on the 138,000 square metre business park.

It followed a deal signed last autumn by Mr Brathwaite, whose group promotes development in the south east, and Hu Yuandong, head of the small business development branch of the United Nations, Unido, to bring Chinese firms to the isle.

On Friday it was revealed that one in 10 jobs there will be filled by Chinese management, with the rest by a local workforce. Mr Wills said 1,000 people would be employed on the business park and some 2,000 other jobs, such as window cleaners, gardeners, building contractors and sign writers, would spring from it indirectly.

Mr Brathwaite said: "Thanet and the China Gateway project has a big profile in China and we're very, very close now to getting this project off the ground. We've obviously suffered a lot from the financial downturn, but funding is secured and it should begin by the first quarter of 2010."

Phase one, agreed by Thanet council subject to legal formalities, includes 21 warehouses, covering 138,000 square metres.

The business park, which is expected be a base for electronic equipment manufacturing, could become about 10 times larger if two further phases get the go-ahead.

Source: Thanet Times