media - Vivendi runs into trouble

In efforts to enter the rather closed Chinese media market, international media companies have been trying a wide range of possibilities, within the legal limits of China. Bertelsmann started ten years ago a rather unsuccessful bookclub and both Disney and Vivendi have been mobilizing local eagerness to enter the industry of entertainment parks.
A headline-grabbing agreement between Vivendi and Shanghai Municipality has been the latest of those efforts to run into trouble, writes the Shanghai Daily today. Workers have been laid off, as the needed permission from Beijing for the USD 875 million worth project is still pending.
While Beijing has been rather unsuccessful in cooling down the fast-paced economic development, withholding permissions for this kind of projects is probably the only thing the central government can do. And it will add another failure to the long list of international media projects in Chinas that did not work out.