Harrods opens private members’ club in Shanghai costing £16,500 a year

Door staff greet a shopper at the Harrods store in London. Members of the club in China are greeted by guards dressed in the same green uniform as those at the Knightsbridge store. Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

Harrods has opened a private members’ club in Shanghai that offers 250 super-rich people exclusive access to Gordon Ramsay’s first restaurant in China, a bar stocked with rare Scotch whiskies, and the Knightsbridge department store’s own-brand private jets.

The retailer opened the private club, which charges minimum annual fees of 150,000 yuan (£16,500), as part of its drive to connect more with wealthy Chinese people as spending by its traditional customer base stagnates.