Shanghai looking ahead to future

It was recently reported by international, Chinese and Shanghai news media that China had eclipsed Japan as the second-largest economy in the world. China’s GDP and economic activity has surpassed that of Japan for many decades, but the announcement was made on the back of a range of factors including imports and exports and the human development index within major cities such as Shanghai.

As the financial heart of the country, Shanghai will play an important part in steering and influencing the further development of China as its economy grows further, with many analysts speculating that China may eventually eclipse the economies of the United States and European Union. We are already the world’s only other viable superpower and Shanghai plays an important part in this role as the financial hub of China.

The growth of the city and its local economy is reflected in the meteoric expansion of the Shanghai Metro Light Railway System which was opened with great fanfare in the Shanghai news media in April of 1995 and now covers over 420 kilometers on 12 lines that connect all major parts of the city. The mass transit system carries more than 5 million people everyday making it one of the most penetrated and extensive metro systems in the world, as well as one of the fastest implemented infrastructure programs.

The existing capacity of the metro is expected to double within the next ten years and will be capable of carrying ten million people per day on 22 lines covering over 877 kilometers of track.

The Shanghai World Expo underscored the growing global reach of Shanghai as an international center of commerce and tourism and saw visitors attending from all over the world. The aims and outcomes of the Expo were more significant though, providing jobs to many foreign nationals, especially from Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand, with part-time jobs as a stepping point to full-time employment in the city, which already has a sizeable expatriate population.

This is part of wider program by the Shanghai government to attract more foreigners to live and work in the city, Shanghai news media recently reported that the local government had issued a guideline aimed at bringing in at least 2000 highly-skilled workers to the city from overseas in an initial effort to transform the city’s workforce from a Chinese-dominated one into a more international labor base.

The plan is also part of an effort to raise the standards among workers in Shanghai and calls for 35% of the total workforce to be highly-skilled workers within the next ten years, which is similar to a national program implemented by the central government that seeks similar outcomes.

As part of plans to expand the tourism sector in Shanghai the government has approved a proposal by Walt Disney Parks and Resorts to have a resort and theme park built in the city that would be modeled on the iconic Disneyland in Florida. The Shanghai Disneyland Resort will be 7 square kilometers in size, covering an area the size of a small town and will cost an expected US$3 billion.

The central government and Shanghai metro government will invest heavily in the project through a number of state-owned enterprises and while rumors were rife in 2005 that the project had been called off, in 2010 it was announced to Shanghai news media by Mayor Han Zheng that land had been allocated and plans approved.

The future looks bright for Shanghai then as the world emerges from the near-economic collapse of 2008/09 and some economists and political analysts have gone so far as to say Shanghai might eclipse New York in terms of economic significance within the next decade.