[photopress:zone_Asia_International.jpg,full,alignright]Construction of the Asia International Furniture Material Trading Center — Asia Star for short — started in 2004.
This mini-zone is in Shunde City, about an hour southwest of Dongguan, a furniture manufacturing hotbed.
It is now home to more than 700 companies occupying some 6.8 million square feet of space. The $290 million project is about 60% complete and is expected to reach some 12 million square feet when it’s completed in 2010. The model in our illustration is used as an illustration by Asia Star and that is our excuse. Looks a lot better than furniture.
According to the developer, Asia Star will eventually house 1,500 materials suppliers and 200 logistics firms offering their services to the industry.
It also will have six administrative buildings, a hotel, an apartment building and an exhibition building for a twice-a-year materials trade show.
The developer is Hechuangying Real Estate, which says it wants to build the facility as a ‘one-stop materials trading platform’ aimed at better serving an estimated 3,000 furniture manufacturers and suppliers in China.
The developers said, ‘The original purpose to set up this trading center is to get a huge a number of manufacturers and material suppliers together and build up an interactive trade platform for the buyer and supplier, so that the material industry could serve the furniture industry.’
[photopress:zones_shunde_city.jpg,full,alignleft] The Asia Star complex will include:
* 2 million square feet for furniture hardware and textiles.
* 1.5 million square feet for logistics companies and related distribution space.
* 1 million square feet for leather and other auxiliary materials.
* About 2 million square feet devoted to the exhibition center and an accompanying business center.
Source: Furniture Today