What makes a city ideal to host the World Expo? A strategic location able to attract massive visitors? Steady economic growth to support the fair? A friendly environment welcoming various cultures and concepts from all origins? Good social order to ensure the safety of the event and all participants?
Well, Shanghai has them all.
It is a global city undergoing perpetual reconstruction, increasingly oriented towards an advanced services economy.
It is also a port city at the intersection of many influences: facing the Pacific Ocean as well as located at the mouth of the Yangtze River, which runs through the most populated regions of the world.
Thus it is easy to understand why the city presents an amazing but harmonious mix of Eastern and Western culture and integrates the ancient civilization and modern values into its culture and spirit.
As a migrant city mainly developed in the last 200 years, Shanghai people are also known for their willingness to accept new ideas and outside cultures.
"Already a hot destination for tourists and businessmen, Shanghai is confident of attracting 70 million visitors to the 2010 Expo," said Huang Yaocheng, deputy director of 2010 World Expo Shanghai Bidding Office.
With an estimated 300 million people living in the wealthy Yangtze River Delta, most of whom are within a three-hour car ride to Shanghai, creating a new attendance record for the World Expo is not too hard to achieve.
To present a "most successful, wonderful and memorable" World Expo, China has promised US$3 billion investment in total. "Shanghai's sustainable economic growth makes the goal easy to achieve," Huang said.
Shanghai's story in the past 10 years is surely one of the great stories of urban renewal of our time.
One doesn't have to be an economist or expert to tell how fast Shanghai's economy has grown in the past 10 years. Visible and tangible changes stand out by themselves.
A decade of double-digit growth has brought towering skyscrapers, elevated highways and modern department stores and cutting-edge night life.
When looking at the modern skyline along the Huangpu River, where the city will place the World Expo 2010, visitors and even locals, find it hard to remember what it might have or did look like only a decade ago.
Last year, the city's GDP grew by 10.2 per cent and the per capita GDP of the city exceeded US$4,500, meaning its comprehensive economic power reached the income level of a medium-developed country.
The economic growth is set to continue at between nine and 11 per cent over the next decade, supported by the accumulated economic impetus and the city's strong confidence in meeting the challenges that arise from the country's accession to the World Trade Organization in December.
As a nation known for its warm hospitality, people in Shanghai are even more confident to be an ideal place to hold a world fair, citing its social stability.
According to Cheng Jiulong, spokesman from the Shanghai Police Bureau, a survey last December showed that more than 90 per cent of local residents said Shanghai's social order is "good."
Shanghai's successful and smooth host of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit, Fortune Forum and the Asia Development Bank annual meeting is more convincing proof that Shanghai is able to accommodate major conferences, VIP guests and a large number of tourists.
Aiming to carry on its glamour for a more splendid future, Shanghai continues to sharpen its competitive edge, striving to build itself into one of the world's most pleasant and beautiful places for both living and working.
Holding the Expo would propel that progression, help integrate the city into the global community and create a better lifestyle for the people of Shanghai.
But the most important of all, as expressed in Shanghai's Expo bid poster, people here have outstretched arms expressing the aspirations of Shanghai for the World Expo 2010.
(China Daily September 24, 2002)
