A piece of land in Xujin in Shanghai's outlying Qingpu District yesterday became the city's most expensive plot this year by overall price, beating an earlier record set less than one month ago.

Shanghai Greenland Group, together with a trading company in Fujian Province, paid 4.72 billion yuan (US$765 million) for the 184,293 square-meter plot, which is to be developed for food and beverage, hotel, office and retail facilities.

The average gross floor area price for the plot was 8,539 yuan per square meter, or 6.7 percent above its starting price.

In February, Shanghai Construction Group acquired an adjacent plot for 4.4 billion yuan.

A mega-exhibition center project by the Ministry of Commerce and the local government will be built on the two adjacent parcels whose total investment may be between 15 billion and 20 billion yuan. The project is set to be completed by the end of 2014 and will be the largest of its kind in the world.