Next spring, a duplicate of the famed Keukenhof Park will open in the city's southeast.

The as-yet unnamed park will become part of the Shanghai Flower Port, the city's largest flower industry base in Nanhui District.

As a complete duplicate of Keukenhof Park, it will cover an area of 28 hectares, the same size as its twin in Holland.

Some 70 million yuan (US$8.4 million) will be invested in the project by the Sino-Dutch Horticultural Training and Demonstration Center, Shanghai Agricultural, Industrial and Commercial Group and Donghai Farm.

Officials call the park "a key to enhance development of the city's flower industry and attract more visitors to the fresh flower port."

According to blueprints, the park will host a lake, exhibition area and a flower art museum. A butterfly-shaped bridge will cross the lake of the same shape, where the water is driven forward by a man-made waterfall. The transparent flower art museum will display precious flowers of different species.

However, only two shows are available in the major exhibition area - which will "copy Keukenhof Park from the format to the spirit" - to keep a mysterious color, said Zhao Caibiao, general manager of the Flower Port.

Keukenhof Park, meaning "kitchen garden" in Dutch, is renowned for its tulip exhibitions. Every spring the park is opened between March 23 and May 21 to host a tulip exhibition with millions of flowers, an event celebrated as a holiday by the Dutch.

The Shanghai park will also hold a similar tulip exhibition, displaying 600,000 tulips of more than 500 varieties next April and May, decorated with a large number of windmills. The other exhibition will be a show of horticulture machinery in autumn.

(eastday.com June 24, 2003)