CapitaLand crossed the 12 million square foot mark of retail Gross Floor Area (GFA) on January 10, with the signing of a new shopping mall management contract in Xi’an.

“We are fast-tracking the growth of our shopping mall network in western China to capitalise on the region’s favourable economic prospects, which have been boosted by the Chinese government’s Western China Development Programme, One Belt One Road economic initiative,” says Jason Leow, CEO of CapitaLand Mall Asia.

CapitaLand Mall Asia, the wholly owned shopping mall business of CapitaLand Limited, will manage a new shopping mall in La Botanica, a township located in Xi’an’s Chan-Ba Ecological District.

Expected to commence operations in 2019, the new mall will double CapitaLand’s retail presence in Xi’an, where it currently owns and manages CapitaMall Xindicheng, a 60,000 sq m shopping mall, about 10 km south of La Botanica. 

Including the mall in La Botanica, CapitaLand now manages a portfolio of 14 shopping malls in western China, with a combined retail GFA of about 1.13 million sq m (12.1 million square feet).

Other recent deals include the announcement last August that CapitaLand is managing the retail component of Fortune Finance Center in Changsha, and the acquisition of CapitaMall Xinnan (formerly Galleria, Chengdu) by CapitaLand Retail China Trust in September.

“CapitaLand’s asset-light expansion strategy through management contracts will continue to gather momentum with this deal in Xi’an, and complement our core strategy of developing, owning and managing malls,” Leow says.