Theme park firms get a lift in China

SHANGHAI -- The business of fun and games is translating into big bucks in China for global builders of theme parks and museums that cater to newly affluent Chinese with a growing taste for world-class entertainment.

In the last year alone, China has opened at least five major theme parks, whose state-of-the-art roller coasters and other rides contrast sharply with an older generation of parks filled with rusting Ferris wheels, creaky bumper cars, and algae-infested water rides.

Britain's Madame Tussauds opened its first China-based trademark wax museum in Shanghai in May, and U S -based Ripley Entertainment hopes to open one of its ``Believe It or Not!" museums on the mainland within a year.

Not to be outdone, the northern city of Tianjin said in May it would build a $625 million Paramount theme park, a chain owned by U S theme park giant Cedar Fair LP. But China's true entry onto the global entertainment stage could come soon as Shanghai edges toward plans for a first-ever mainland Disneyland, after the Walt Disney Co. confirmed last month it was in late-stage talks to build such a park.

Theme parks can be lucrative not only for operators but for builders of rides that can cost up to $10 million for a single roller coaster.

Many of those ride-builders were showing off their attractions at the IAAPA Asian Expo 2006, the industry's biggest show in Asia that made its China debut last week in Shanghai.

``The local governments and local investors are seeing you can make money with a theme park in China," said Sascha Czibulka, representing Swiss amusement company Intamin Transportation Ltd. Intamin, whose clients include Disney, Cedar Fair, and U S -based Six Flags Inc., has plans to deliver eight rides in China costing millions of dollars each in 2006.