Joel Joseph,TNN | Jun 11, 2015, 03.32 AM IST

GURGAON: The chairman of one of China’s biggest companies visited Gurgaon on Wednesday in what government officials described as an “exploratory” tour for a mega project in Haryana.

The Dalian Wanda Group wants to set up an integrated industrial township in the state and is looking for 7,000-9,000 acres of land for this purpose, a senior official in the Gurgaon administration said. The group, a conglomerate of companies, is the biggest private property developer in China and the world’s largest cinema chain operator.

The chairman of the group, Wang Jianlin, also met Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar, the chief secretary and several other senior state officials after visiting the Cyber City are and some other places in Gurgaon along with deputy commissioner T L Satyaprakash.

Jianlin, according to sources, told state officials he does not wish to go through the land acquisition process and is looking for readily available land to set up this township. An official said the state did have land with it but not 9,000 acres in the same area. The CM and his team, however, assured Jianlin of the state’s support in setting up the township.

The Dalian Wanda chairman had met Modi during the PM’s visit to Beijing last month and again in Delhi on Tuesday. On June 3, company officials, including vice-president Wang Zhi Bin, group CFO Liu Chao Hui, visited Gurgaon to discuss investment possibilities in a meeting hosted by the ministry of external affairs and the Haryana government.

An official who attended Wednesday’s meetings said, “Dalian Wanda has huge plans, which also includes setting up an international airport and a power plant under this integrated industrial township project. They are looking for an enormous chunk of land between 7,000 and 9,000 acres or even more. Its chairman, who is often referred to as the Bill Gates of China, has shown interest in setting up this project at the earliest and wants land that has already been acquired by the government. They are looking for a mixed land use acreage.”

The meeting, chaired by Khattar, was supposed to be held at Haryana Bhawan in Delhi but the venue was changed. “The meeting took place at Radisson Hotel in Mahipalpur since it is closer to Gurgaon and the airport. A presentation was made during the meeting in which some huge parcels of land that are readily available in Sohna and Kharkhoda (Sonipat district) were shown to the delegation. Some possible areas near Kundli Manesar Palwal (KMP) expressway were also discussed,” the official added.

Haryana officials are looking forward to a follow-up meeting with Dalian Wanda soon. “Nothing has been finalized so far. The firm is also in talks with the governments of Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra as others also seem to be wooing it because the investment is huge. We are hoping that we are able to provide a huge chunk of land in Haryana so that this firm sets up this project in the state,” another state official said.