A billboard in New York's Times Square promoting an area of Daxing district as the "crossroads of the world" has prompted discussion and amusement from locals and online.

A Sina Weibo user spotted the unusual ad while in New York, posting a picture Thursday of a billboard with Chinese characters in the iconic square, captioned "Yizhuang has become unstoppable."

The billboard displays "Beijing Yizhuang" in Chinese characters and its English name, Beijing E-Town, as well as a slogan, "International high-end development area" in both languages.

Yizhuang, an area of Daxing which the government promoted as a high-tech zone in the 1990s, is home to over 3,000 companies, including multinationals like GE, Bayer, and Schneider, as well as upscale residential compounds.

According to a Beijing Times report yesterday, an official from Beijing E-Town Economic Development Area (BDA) confirmed that BDA's administrative commission did buy the New York ad space, and said it was "just regular government work."

The 19- by 12-meter billboard on No.2 Building, Times Square, was leased by Xinhua News Agency, the State news agency, and ads started appearing in August, according to an August 1 Xinhua report.

It also revealed that the estimated commercial fees per month of such a location would be $300,000 to 400,000, and Xinhua had signed up to a five-year lease.

Yizhuang residents had generally positive reactions to the campaign, several told the Global Times.

"It's amazing for Yizhuang to make a bigger impression in the world, to attract more foreign investment. Isn't that the whole point of leasing the billboard?" said one resident, surnamed Zhang.

However, Tang Renwu, director of the Public Administration Department at Beijing Normal University was afraid that it would not only be Yizhuang that became more recognized.

"It's good for the government to put effort into polishing the country's image or building local companies' brands, but seeing a big ad on Times Square might make more people in the US worry about whether China was buying the world," Tang said.

Some also question if the billboard would mean anything to an American audience, and so is a big waste of money.

Samuel Lee, an American dentist living in New York, did not notice the ad. 

"I remember one about a Chinese alcohol brand advertised up there, but it's probably not an American-friendly product to sell in the US," said Lee.

"Probably those things are more meaningful to Chinese people than passers-by here," Lee noted.