Dongguan , China ( CNN ) -- They built it , but the shoppers did n't come . New South China Mall in Guangdong Province opened in 2005 . With 5 million square feet of shopping area , the mall can accommodate 2,350 stores , making it the largest shopping center in the world in terms of leasable space -- more than twice the size of Mall of America , the biggest shopping center in the United States . At the outdoor plaza , hundreds of palm-trees blend with a replica Arc de Triomphe , a giant Egyptian sphinx , fountains and long-stretching canals with gondolas . Only problem is , the mall is virtually deserted . Despite the bombastic design and grand plans , only a handful of stores are occupied . `` Most of it empty , with little consumer traffic and a high vacancy rate , '' according to a report last year by Emporis , a global building data firm . `` It has been classified as a 'dead mall . ' '' Walking among shattered shops -- its dusty corridors and escalators covered in soiled sheets -- is a walk through a ghost mall . Rubbish piles up along the sides , paint is coming off the walls and store signs and advertisements have faded . The mall 's indoor amusement park , staff lay half asleep over counters or kill time chatting with each other while the 1,814-foot rollercoaster roars above . Opened for the public in 2005 , developers expected to attract some 100,000 visitors a day . But eight years later , the few people that visit the mall today typically hang out at the American fast food restaurants near the entrance or at the IMAX cinema outside the mall . Some parents bring their children to the Teletubbies Edutainment Center . Part of the problem is location . Dongguan is a factory town and most of its almost 10 million inhabitants are migrant workers struggling to make ends meet . `` People coming here to work in factories do n't have the time or the money for shopping or the rollercoaster , '' said a migrant worker in his 20s , surnamed Xiao , who works at the mall . The deserted mall is also a symbol of China 's rapid urbanization and runaway investment in real estate projects , where massive development projects have been given the go ahead without proper marketing and business research . `` To me , many of these projects are a result of easy access to capital and a combination of wishful thinking and speculative behavior rather than rational business calculations , '' said Victor Teo , assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong . `` This mall is not the only one that is like that . Elsewhere in China there is the phenomenon of 'Ghost Towns ' , that is to say infrastructure projects , both residential and commercial , with no takers . '' The credit boom of post-financial crisis stimulus has resulted in a proliferation of empty commercial developments and apartments built on rampant speculation . Yet why is the Chinese economy still moving at a brisk 7 % to 8 % growth rate ? `` What China did in the stimulus credit boom is create a lot of ` ghost cities ' : projects without a strong commercial foundation , and projects that did n't get done , '' wrote Jonathan Anderson in a research note entitled `` Hurray for Ghost Cities '' from Emerging Advisors Group last month . `` What happens next ? `` In most of the economy ... nothing . You have n't created a lot of new productive capacity ; you 're not driving down profits and returns in manufacturing and services , and you 've left plenty of room for a rebound in the market-oriented property space . `` Rather , for all intents and purposes you just took the money and poured it down a black hole , '' Anderson wrote . And the Chinese banking system `` has surprisingly little trouble absorbing that bad debt . '' But while the macroeconomic juggernaut of China marches on , there remain regional areas of woe . Dongguan is facing mounting problems as factories close down and manufacturing moves to other cities in China and abroad which offer cheaper labor . Still , the mall has plans to boost the number of tenants , said Ye Ji Ning , head of New South China Mall 's investment unit . He claims the mall has a 20 % occupancy rate measured by commercial area , although Ye declined to give specifics when challenged on that number . The company 's goal is to increase occupancy to 80 % in 2013 , he said . `` From March onwards we will have big promotional activities in order to reach our new leasing targets , '' Ye said . It 's not the first time the owners try to blow life into the sleeping giant . The mall was initially headed by Dongguan native Alex Hu Guirong , who became a billionaire in the instant noodle business , and later sold to the Founders Group , a conglomerate set up by Peking University . In a 2007 relaunch , the mall changed name from `` South China Mall '' to `` New South China Mall , Living City '' and a revitalization plan was drawn up . But after the relaunch , neither shoppers nor tenants came .
The New South China Mall in Guangdong Province is the world 's largest mall . But since its opening in 2005 , few tenants and visitors have come to the store . ` ` Most of it empty , with little consumer activity and a high vacancy rate ... a ' dead mall ' '' China littered with '' ghost towns , '' empty commercial spaces lost in speculative boom .