Economic Development

Incredibly crowded, densely packed, Shanghai is the biggest port and the center of technique, trade, finance, information and culture in China. With energy and confidence, Shanghai is having new dreams. The polluted rivers are being cleaned up and greenways and new parks are emerging. Historic neighborhoods, both Chinese and colonial, are being spared the bulldozer and transformed into avenues of shops and cafes. New theaters and cultural centers are attracting top performers from China and abroad.

Since its inception in October 1991, Shanghai Foreign Investment Service Center (SFISC) has been surfing the wave of Chinese reform for 13 years, witnessing Shanghai marching to a world metropolis.

The number of new stock investment accounts at the Shanghai Stock Exchange declined in September, according to a report by the Shanghai bourse. Total transaction value and trading frequency were also slightly down, compared with August, said the report.

New accounts opened in September shrank to 3.7 million from 4.71 million in August. Of the new accounts, new mutual fund accounts declined drastically, from August's 2.82 million to 1.68 million last month. New A-share accounts increased 125,900 from August to 2 million in September.

Shanghai suburbs are becoming a magnet for foreign investment as the metropolis seeks coordinated development of both the 600-square-kilometer city proper and the vast 5,700-square-kilometer suburban area.

According to statistics provided by the municipal agricultural committee, contractual foreign investment in Shanghai's suburbs signed in the first half of this year totaled 4.52 billion US dollars, accounting for 74 percent of the municipal total for the same period.

Actually used foreign investment here totaled 1.3 billion dollars in the first six months, up 30 percent year-on-year.

The word "Shang Hai" is literally translated to "above the sea" as the city of Shanghai was built 500 years ago on the bank of the Yangtze River Delta, with East Sea in the east and Hangzhou delta in the south. Shanghai summers are hot and humid with temperatures reaching 40 degrees Celsius. The rainy season begins in June. Fall is mostly mild. In winter (January to February) temperatures can reach below freezing. Spring begins again in March.

One week ago I left Shanghai behind and my wife and I began our annual migration back to our summer stomping grounds, the Pacific Northwest. After 10 months living and working in a city of 18 million people with an industrial sector that ensures 365 days a year of a thick haze blank over the Shanghai, nothing is more refreshing than returning to the nearly empty mountains of North Idaho (“It’s a state of mind” is what they say around here).

Shanghai - The famous saying "Go west, young man" minted during the Gold Rush in the United States, is now often used when talking about the new gold rush, the rush to China ("Go East" of course). So, for a few of the foreign gold-diggers in China it must be rather disturbing to see that the motto for Chinese and Chinese companies is again "Go West, young men and women". I'm not only talking about the Chinese who go abroad to pick up an education they cannot get at home, and often stay there.