Leading boat auctions off for 360,000 yuan
- Source: Global Times
- [14:11 August 19 2010]
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Bidder Su Shouliang raises the price of the hottest item at the first Expo auction held in the city Wednesday. Photo: Jerry Lu
By Duan Wuning
The leading motorboat used for the opening ceremony of the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai won the highest bid of 360,000 yuan ($53,050) during the first-ever auction for Expo memorabilia Wednesday held at the Guopai Building on Fuzhou Road.
A grand total of 1.62 million yuan ($239,386) was raised from auction Wednesday, where two other motorboats and 10 sailboats also showcased in the opening ceremony sold for about five times their original prices, said auction organizers.
"The auction prizes are worth a lot both in terms of actual value and as collector's items," Fan Ganping, vice president of the Shanghai International Commodity Auction Company, the officially designated Expo auction firm for the Expo, told the Global Times Wednesday.
Fan said that the auction was used to test the waters in terms of gauging the interest of visitors wanting to bid on Expo items. He added the event went so well that Expo organizers are planning to auction off various other Expo items, including costumes worn by performers during the opening ceremony as well as LED bulbs that were used along the Huangpu River for the festive occasion.
According to Huang Jianzhi, deputy director of the Shanghai World Expo Coordination Bureau, auctioning off Expo items that will no longer have a use once the show is over is an ideal way to dispose of the articles.
"This will also help Expo organizers offset the operational costs of running the six-month event," he told the Global Times Wednesday.
The auction Wednesday also marked the first time for the city to auction off memorable items used at a large-scale event, an idea borrowed from the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Though some dozen inquires about the auction were initially made by foreigners, only Chinese registered for the event Wednesday, with Zhejiang native Su Shouliang taking home the Phoenix 660 motorboat Wednesday. The 43-year-old, who also won another motorboat and a sailboat, altogether spent 830,500 yuan ($122,382) at the auction.
"I made a bid for the boats because I have a personal connection with the Expo; my company was hired to do about 70 percent of the greenery work inside the Expo Park," he told the Global Times Wednesday. "I'm looking forward to riding my new boats around town."
