Tao Yan held a certificate yesterday naming her the 25 millionth visitor to the Oriental Pearl TV Tower. Today marks the 10th anniversary of the tower.

The tower, one of the city's famous landmarks, has become the world's most profitable TV tower, with annual incomes exceeding those of The Eiffel Tower. With a brand value of 5.148 billion yuan (US$0.62 billion), the tower was evaluated 96th on the list of the 500 most valuable Chinese brands, and one of the top 20 influential Chinese brands in the world for the year 2003 and 2004, according to the World Brand Lab.

The Oriental Pearl TV Tower started construction in 1992, and with 50 million yuan in government funds and a combined 150 million yuan and US$10 million yuan in bank loans from 44 banks, it completed construction and opened to the public two years later.

Over the last ten years, the tower has received 295 overseas presidents and leaders and 25 million tourists.

According to statistics, more than three million travelers visit the tower every year, while the figure is 3.3 million for The Eiffel Tower. However, compared with the latter, the Oriental Pearl TV tower is more profitable because of its lower operational costs.

With abundant tourism resources and hefty economic returns, the Shanghai Oriental Pearl Group was listed in 1994 and raised funds four times. With total assets of more than 5.4 billion yuan (US$0.6 billion), the group boasts four business sections: tourism, media advertising, information transmission and strategy investment. Over the past ten years, the group has reported total revenues of 1.934 billion yuan (US$0.2 billion)and profits of 1.135 billion yuan (US$0.14).

(Shanghai Daily November 18, 2004)