Japan's Mori Building Company aims to join a new development project in Shanghai to build a shopping complex, while it sees growing signs of recovery in the property market at home, its president said.

"We've also been asked [by Shanghai city] to come up with redevelopment ideas for the post-Shanghai Expo site and airport expansion plans there," said President and Chief Executive Officer Minoru Mori in an interview with a news agency.

Mori, 75, is an influential building tycoon in Japan who was ranked 19th on Forbes list of the nation's richest people in 2009.

The developer of the 492-metre (1,614-feet) Shanghai World Financial Centre, which at its opening in August 2008 surpassed the neighbouring Jin Mao Tower as China's tallest building, is known for a number of major projects in central Tokyo's Minato-ward.

Mori's largest project so far is the Roppongi Hills complex in Tokyo's Roppongi entertainment district, which opened in 2003 with the 54-story Mori Tower, apartments, shops and movie theatres. Then in 2006, Mori opened Omotesando Hills in the city's trendy Harajuku area with dozens of shops and restaurants, making it one of the city's landmarks.

In Shanghai, the developer is proposing to build a shopping complex similar to Omotesando Hills, Mori said.

"There's a plot of about 10,000 square metres (107,600 sq feet) sitting next to Shanghai World Financial Centre, and our idea is to make something like Omotesando Hills," Mori said.

Mori said the company is also willing to join projects to draft out development plans elsewhere in Asia, not only in China.

For several years Mori Building has been trying to build facilities and offer services that help attract foreign investments.

The latest in the series of such developments is to launch a daily helicopter service between Mori's Roppongi building and Narita, about 70 kilometres from central Tokyo.

"We've just submitted the application to the government and would like to get their approval to be able to start the service from mid-September," Mori said.

The service would cut the journey time from Roppongi to the airport to about 30 minutes, compared with an average of about 90 minutes by a regular train or shuttle bus service.

 

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