The Construction of Shanghai Disneyland is expected to begin on April 8, said an anonymous government official on Saturday who is involved in the project.

The agreement on the project was signed in November 2010. The new theme park will be the first Disneyland on the Chinese mainland and the fourth outside the United States, after Paris, Tokyo and Hong Kong.

The cost for the first phase of the project is expected to amount to 24.5 billion yuan (3.74 billion U.S. dollars), Shanghai Mayor Han Zheng said on the sidelines of the annual parliamentary session in Beijing in early March.

Earlier reports said that 116 hectares of land has been allocated for the Disneyland project in the Pudong New Area.