"We are debt free at the moment and I'm confident we will remain debt free when we finish all our existing projects," Chairman Ronnie Chan told reporters at the opening of the company's 171,000-square-meter shopping mall in the eastern city of Jinan on Aug 26. 

Doubling that investment in the next phase "won't be a problem," he said. 

Hang Lung, Hong Kong's third-biggest builder by market value, has built four shopping malls outside its home city and is scheduled to open at least four projects in the next three years in the cities of Shenyang, Wuxi, Tianjin and Dalian. Chan said the company is actively looking to add more developments, declining to identify the locations. 

The developer, which has about HK$27 billion in cash, hasn't bought any land in Hong Kong in at least 10 years and is now shifting its focus to luxury shopping malls in other parts of China, where the economy is growing at a faster pace. Hang Lung typically targets cities with per-capita income of 40,000 yuan for its projects, Chan said on Aug 26. 

The Jinan mall, which cost about 3.5 billion yuan, had a gross yield of about 6 percent in its first year, Chan said. The mall has about 350 stores including Gucci and Escada. The city has a population of 7 million and its economy grew 13 percent last year, according to government statistics. 

Hang Lung's rental income from the mainland will "almost certainly" overtake that from Hong Kong next year, Chan said. The company owns the Standard Chartered building and Hang Lung Centre in Hong Kong. 

The company lost the tender for the management rights to the Queensway Plaza shopping mall in Hong Kong's Admiralty district, which it has been operating for 30 years, spokesman Kwan Chuk-fai said separately on Aug 26. 

The company is "disappointed" by the loss, Kwan said. The company has been operating the government-owned mall atop the Admiralty MTR station since 1981. The current management right expires in January 2012.