Source: China Daily

12-03-2008 18:24

By Hong Liang (China Daily)

Shanghai got off to a slow start in the early days of economic reform, relative to Shenzhen and Xiamen. Now, it has more than caught up with the other coastal cities in establishing its key role in the nation's development.

In the process, it has transformed itself from a dull and inefficient manufacturing base for a planned economy to a vibrant and progressive metropolis, servicing the modern industrial heartland of the Yangtze River Delta region.

Most of the imposing pre-war buildings on the Bund, erected by the banks and merchant houses of former colonial powers, still stand as testimony to the faded glory of Shanghai as the Paris of the East. The city's new status as China's premier financial center is symbolized by the glass-and-steel office towers across the murky Huangpu in Lujiazui in the Pudong new district.

Since the financial sector opened to foreign institutions, Shanghai has become the China headquarters for nearly all the major foreign banks, insurers and investment houses.

The city is home to the country's main stock market that ranks as one of the largest in Asia in terms of total capitalization. Gold and commodities futures contracts traded on the Shanghai Futures Exchange are having an increasingly big influence on the international market.