(Yicai Global) Jan. 11 -- A full-size replica of Beijing's Old Summer Palace, also known as the Yuanmingyuan, will open in Hengdian on July 1 next year, local media quoted Chinese entrepreneur Xu Wenrong as saying yesterday.

The attraction in East China's Zhejiang province will feature reproductions of 84 percent of the original, and it is backed by CNY30 billion (USD4.6 billion) in investments, said Xu, the founder of Hengdian Group Holdings Ltd.

The copycat will sit mainly on former wasteland and will have versions of four of the Beijing Yuanmingyuan's major parks.

The Beijing Yuanmingyuan is an imperial palace that the Qing emperors of China built. The French writer Victor Hugo described it as a "model of idealism and art."

It became a ruin after Anglo-French forces ransacked and burned it in the Second Opium War in 1860. Since the Yuanmingyuan symbolizes violations of China's sovereignty, heated debates over whether it should be rebuilt take place.