By Liu Sheng

The city's most traditionally popular tourist spot Wednesday announced plans to develop the area into a modern gold and jewelry hub in as little as five years, with the hopes of doubling its annual trade volume to account for 30 percent of the local market share.

The premature vision aims to transform the area surrounding the classical Yuyuan Garden that hails from the Ming Dynasty into an international gold and jewelry business district in the next five to eight years while maintaining the historic nostalgia of the spot that reminisces old Shanghai, said Wu Ping, chief executive officer of Yuyuan Tourist Mart Company, which operates the commercial tourist area.

"We want to expand the 5.3-hectare lot into a gold and jewelry hub that will expand to some 49 hectares in the next five to eight years," he told the Global Times Wednesday. "This will allow us to work towards doubling our annual trade volume of gold and jewelry."

Bringing in some 3 billion yuan ($458 million) from gold and jewelry sales last year and accounting for 15 percent of the local market, Yuyuan Tourist Mart currently boasts 10 of the nation's top gold and jewelry brands, including Lao Fengxiang and Laomiao.

"We're one of the largest gold retailers in China," he said. "We plan to keep that up by attracting international brands; we want to get Hong Kong's Chow Tai Fook as well as Tiffany and Cartier on board with us once the expansion is complete."

Wu promised that the development of a gold and jewelry center would not come at the expense of the ancient Chinese culture that has survived decades of modernization, saying that Yuyuan Garden will remain unchanged while efforts focus on building up the tourist area – so as not to disturb the sightseeing of some 30 million-plus tourists that visit the garden yearly from home and abroad.

"We'll protect Yuyuan Garden, but also balance the area with a modern flair that will draw younger crowds and allow the location to thrive for generations to come," he said, adding that the concept was inspired from the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai's slogan, ‘Better City, Better Life.'

Experts said Wednesday that now is the time to capitalize on the gold market as prices and demand for the precious metal continue to climb and trends show no signs of reversing anytime soon.

But whether the move will continue to make Yuyuan Tourist Mart viable as a profitable tourist destination has yet to be seen, according to Guan Yu, president of Shanghai Jiao Tong University's Financial Institution. 

"A gold and jewelry business district will bode well for economic growth and development for the market," he told the Global Times Wednesday. "But whether it will add to tourism, or hurt it is hard to say right now – in the end it will all depend on how the area is developed."