Shanghai
A pearl
beyond
S
hanghai lies where the Huangpu River
flows into the Yangzi estuary close to
the East China Sea, an entrepôt from
where riverboats still travel beyond Chongqing,
1,500 kilometres inland. With two international
airports it is also well connected nationally by
road and rail – in 2010, ultra-fast 350 kmh ‘Bullet
Trains’ will put it within five hours of Beijing.
The recently-opened Hangzhou Bay Bridge has
compare
brought Zhejiang Province, one of China’s major
private enterprise regions, within a few hours of
Shanghai’s port. Immediately west is Suzhou,
Jiangsu Province’s high-tech manufacturing area.
In 2005, with a cargo throughput of 443m
tons, Shanghai was ranked as the world’s largest
port. The recent global downturn has seen exports
In the 1930s, Shanghai was the ‘Pearl of the Orient’, a fabulously
reportedly fall 26.2 per cent year-on-year in April
wealthy city that thrived as Western capitalism made inroads
2009 to $25.13bn, compared to a decline of 16.4
into China. Today, the city is claimed to be the world’s most
per cent in March.
exciting place to do business. Bruce Connolly reports
Shanghai, meanwhile, is widening its portfolio
into global finance and R&D aimed at domestic
consumption.
20 pathfinder buSineSS l JUNE/JULY 2009
PBS12 pp20-25 Shanghai.indd 24 5/6/09 15:27:08
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