A AU$500m (£304m, US$475m, €355m) theme park that will include a full-size replica of Beijing's Forbidden City and a nine-storey temple housing a giant Buddha is to be built in Wyong, 90km (56 miles) north of Sydney, Australia.

It is hoped the new attraction is that it would attract Chinese visitors in a similar way to American tourists travelling to EuroDisney - a familiar cultural icon in a new exotic location.

The company behind the new attraction - Australian Chinese Theme Park Pty (ACTP), is expecting to submit a full development plan for the 15-hectare (150,000sq m) park, with construction scheduled to begin in the second half of 2014.

The park will be split into seven sections including a panda paradise, 4D cinema and waxworks museum.

Chinese tourism contributed AU$4bn, (£2.4bn, US$3.8bn, €2.8bn) towards the Australian economy last year and Prime Minister Julia Gillard took a high-level delegation to China in April, announcing an annual trade and tourism fair, agreeing to trade the Australian dollar directly against the yuan after the US dollar and the Japanese yen.