CHINA: Investors in a central China city are building a giant 300 million-dollar sculpture of a dragon that they say will be the largest in the world, state media said on March 27th.

The "Ancestral Dragon", whose partially completed head rises nine metres (30 feet) above ground in Henan province, will be finished by 2009 to mark the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic's founding, the Beijing Morning Post said.

The investor group based in the nearby provincial capital of Zhengzhou said the 21-kilometre (13-mile) metal structure is intended as a tourist destination that will wind its way along a circular group of hills north of the city.

It will house galleries in which visitors can, for a fee, have their names and other messages inscribed. Advertising space on the giant serpent also will be sold, the paper said.

An overseas Chinese investor group initially began the project in 2002 but abandoned it due to financial difficulties.

The new group are also having money troubles and seeking funds from other parties, adding that the dragon could act as a barrier protecting Zhengzhou from sandstorms that blow in from the north each spring, the paper said.

The length of the dragon was selected to represent the 21st century, the paper said.