Today's Shanghai | News(2001)

July

People gather at the Westgate Mall to watch a 350-square-metre, 100,000-piece domino complex falling down in succession last weekend. The activity is held to celebrate Beijing's successful bid to host the 2008 Olympics.

shanghai is to build 15 wildlife protection zones in the next 10 years. When the project is completed, the area of protection zones within the city will total 1,000 square kilometres, one-sixth of the total area of Shanghai. About 80 percent of animals living in the city will then be protected. The 15 zones will be spread across different counties.

Many Shanghai people seek evening work. The local job market has begun opening at night from 7:00pm to 9:00pm to meet the needs of workers who are busy in the daytime. It is the first time that this method has been employed in China, and it has met with a good reception from local residents.

Over the past few years, many Hong Kong film companies have been looking for aspiring stars in the mainland. With more investment by hong Kong businessmen in Shanghai, more Hong Kong-based popular singers come to business centres in the downtown area to do promotion.

Shanghai Dazhong Transportation has joined hands with Shanghai Yatong Co Ltd to set up Shanghai Chongming Traffic Investment Co Ltd as part of Chongming's overall development in the new century. The venture, with registered capital of 50 million Yuan ($6 million), will help Chongming, China's third largest island, build highways and container wharves.

The Shanghai Aircraft Factory will soon deliver its 100th even tail for Boeing 737-NG airplanes to the Boeing company. Boeing experts in shanghai said even tails produced by the Chinese factory conform to international aviation quality control standards and are comparable with international advanced levels.

China opened its wholesale industry to foreign investment for the first time, as it approved the country's first wholesale joint venture early last week.

Rapid economic development in the city is attracting more and more Chinese people studying abroad to come back and display their prowess. The latest statistics show that to date, 25,000 returned students are working in the city. In the past 20 years, more than 100,000 people left Shanghai to study abroad.Almost 50 per cent of the returned students are working at State-owned enterprises or foreign-funded enterprises.Many of them have become the backbones of their respective work units. In addition, returned students have established more than 1,100 enterprises in Shanghai, involving a total investment of $250 million.

Purchasing a house and renting it out has become a new investment trend among Shanghai residents. The house-rental market has prospered and the number of rental offices nearly doubled. The market is better controlled, with more agents, on-line renting and house banks set up.

Shanghaiese now can see many plants that did not grow here before. A college key lab in Pudong has cloned nearly 60 plants, some of which grow in Japan in remote mountains and species on the verge of extinction. Experts in the lab said a cloned plant can bear more than 100 yung plants after three months.

The APEC Youth Festival-APEC Young Leaders/Entrepreneurs Forum opened in Shanghai on July 11.More than 230 young entrepreneurs, scholars and government officials from all 21 APEC member economies attended the forum. The theme of the forum is "building commonprosperity by meeting challenges of young leaders and entrepreneurs in the new economy." The participants will deliver speeches, hold symposiums and join the virtual trade show.

Shanghai Shipyard on the Huangpu River will be moved to Chongming Island within three or four years, to make way for the expansion of Pudong's Lujiazui Finance and Trade Zone.The shipyard occupies an area of 440,000 square metres and the development project is expected to cost about 10 billion yuan($1.2 billion).

CHINA Eastern Airlines is to begin operating charter flights from Shanghai to Kwangju, South Korea. The airline now serves eight South Korean destinations with 41 weekly flights.

The Shanghai-based China Sky Aviation Enterprises Group consisting of six provincial airlines is to conduct goods transfer business at six cities where the airlines are based by opening up 74 air routes. The six airlines have signed agreements. The group will discuss co-operation in sharing aviation materials,curbing costs and improving management.

Shanghai Bell Co Ltd has recently aroused the attention of the information technology industry with a proposal for development of the next generation network(NGN).The NGN, based upon the available network resources and an open network frame, aims to provide diverse services including voice, data and multimedia.

To mark the 80th anniversary of the foundation of the Communist Party of China, Shanghai TV Station hung an 80-metre-long and 56-metre-wide Party flag on the wall of the station's building on Sunday morning. Made by the Shanghai Flag and Banner Factory, it is the biggest Party flag ever made.

Pudong created a gross domestic product of 37.6 billion yuan($4.5 billion) in the first five months of this year, up 15.8 per cent over the same period last year.

Sun Microsystems Shanghai and the Hong Kong-based Internet infrastructure company HoldFast have joined forces to establish an Internet Application Product Research and Development Centre in Shanghai.

Back>>>