Crouching tiger, hidden prices: thataa‚¬a„¢s Bucharestaa‚¬a„¢s China Town

Bucharest has long been home to a significant Chinese community, and the tiger-economy country is the inspiration behind a new retail development, China Town, which opened to much fanfare last week. Business Review travelled to the outskirts of town to see what all the fuss was about, and found a strange mix of forward thinking and the old habits of the informal economy.

Andrea Ovanezian

July 19 saw the much trumpeted opening of China Town, a 10km strip of commercial centers that starts from Sos. Colentina (Voluntari), crosses the Bucharest beltway (Centura) and stretches into Afumati via the Sos. Bucuresti-Urziceni. The strip encompasses two generations of commercial centers.
Among the first generation are the bazaar-style wholesalers Europa, Niro, Doraly Expo Market, and (much later) Dragonul Rosu – the precursor to China Town. Among the second generation are the international chain stores – which blur the distinctions between wholesale and retail – such as Metro, Praktiker and Carrefour.
But back to why I was visiting (the newest) China Town. Sometimes we are desperate for adventure – especially as we anticipate the steamy start of our summer vacations.

Meanwhile, the extensive and enthusiastic local press coverage had also piqued my interest – the promise of a China Town that, after several development stages, would encompass, on 400,000 sqm, roughly 1,500 vendor spaces (wholesale/retail), a ‘village’ of traditional Chinese houses and modern residential apartments, restaurants and clubs, a fitness center, a nursery school, a medical clinic, a deposit warehouse, and 5,000 parking spaces. All of which – and here’s the ‘kicker’ – will attract thousands of tourists.
Arriving in China Town at 09:00 (the opening time was 06:00), I found a mostly empty parking lot and discovered that the official inauguration had been re-scheduled from 10:00 to ‘sometime around noon’.
Meanwhile, the outdoor ‘press center’, which consisted of an un-manned table and two chairs, lacked any press representatives or materials, and I was unable to find any type of guide to the layout of the commercial spaces.
Nonetheless, I was easily able to make my way around the half-moon layout of the commercial structures.
The NaturaCafe was closed, but advertised fast food, shaorma-style. The NaturaCenter is comprised of indoor commercial spaces, housed in four single-story structures, most of which were still vacant, and the few vendor-occupied spaces were not open for business.
The Pavilions, three single-story hangars, include commercial spaces seemingly at 25 percent occupancy, with Chinese and Romanian vendors selling clothing and toys (Pavilion A), more clothing & accessories (Pavilion B), and household items (Pavilion C). Each pavilion is equipped with public toilets.

Although most of the vendor-occupied spaces in the Pavilions were theoretically open for business, there were no prices displayed anywhere, no cash registers – and therefore no fiscal receipts to be had, as required by law – and no hope of making any card payments. In this context, I found it impractical to undertake any serious consumer-oriented journalism regarding price (or value) comparisons for similar products sold by competitor commercial enterprises on the strip, or online.
However, I will mention that I found a nice bathroom unit, a porcelain sink with wooden cabinet and mirror, at one of the Pavilions (with a quoted price of RON 700), and subsequently found a similar unit at the Doraly Expo Market across the street for an advertised price of RON 350.
Moreover, at 09:30 on a weekday the Doraly’s parking lot was full of cars and minivans with license plates from all corners of Romania and even some foreign plates, most likely on second-hand cars owned by Romanians. If the Doraly’s parking lot says anything about the ‘promise of tourism’ (the mantra of China Town’s executive director), then clearly it seems that the Doraly has delivered on this promise.
Perhaps Romanian government officials should take note: if you want to effectively promote tourism for your country, the frontline – and most practical – strategy would be to promote domestic tourism first, as it can also pay to consider the customers you don’t have or don’t want.

Among the memorable stand-out aspects from my visit to China Town, were the carpet store dubbed “Pierre Cardin Antibacterian” which made me laugh; a Samsonite store that seemed out of place, the NaturaCafe, which actually sold neither natural food nor Chinese cuisine, and the Libra Bank branch that was clearly open and ready for business, in the midst of a cash-based market.
(Prior to the relatively recent entry of so-called relationship banking from commercial banks and community-based cooperatives, the American versions of China Town, which are based in the inner-city, not the outskirts of town, grew up in the midst of the traditional Chinese network of family and friends finance, known as the ‘chop’, ‘chit’ or ‘flying money’ system.)

The most memorable moment, courtesy of my office television, was Prime Minister Emil Boc’s appearance at the China Town inaugural ceremony. Given Boc’s past declarations regarding a crackdown on fiscal evasion, customs fraud and money laundering in the ‘grey’ economy, the local press was eager to point out the irony of the ‘fiscal irregularities’ they were observing on the spot: no prices advertised at the site and no ‘bon fiscal’ issued. Watch online best incest porn videos on porn sex video chat Browse our directory of the best adult live webcamchat Porn, streaming live porn video.
And I couldn’t help but notice the subtle irony in Boc’s inaugural message: that Romanians no longer have to travel to London, Paris, New York or San Francisco to visit China Town – which inadvertently promoted domestic tourism – otherwise it’s hard to imagine how many foreign tourists China Town will attract to Romania, or even from the center of Bucharest.
Moreover, unlike the Bucharest enterprise, the American versions of China Town have developed on the back of decades of natural evolution which created an intricate nexus of community, culture, cuisine and commerce – with little or no help from local government agencies and financial institutions, until the later years – and that were built mostly through the tenacity and hard work of their Chinese-American residents.

Andrea Ovanezian

Project Profile
China Town
Value of the project: EUR 27 million
Location: Afumati, 16 kilometers from Bucharest
Surface: 138,500 sqm
Stores: 1,240
Open Mon-Sat 06:00-17:00
Sos. Bucuresti-Urziceni 17,
Afumati (Ilfov county)
www.chinatownromania.ro