Forum looks into Shanghai's future
- Source: Global Times
- [10:55 May 26 2010]
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By Li Xiang
Shanghai is taking full advantage of the World Expo 2010 to boost its development, although the city still has a long way to go before qualifying as Asia's financial hub, delegates at the Shanghai-Tokyo Metropolis Forum at the World Financial Center in Pudong New Area said Tuesday.
"The Expo is having a profound effect on this mega-city, not only in pushing Shanghai to a new phase of economic development, but also in narrowing the gap between the city and the world's first-tier cities," said Tu Qiyu, a professor at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences and chief editor of the annual Blue Paper on Shanghai Economic Growth, during a speech. "The door to prosperity has been opened," he con-cluded.
However, it wasn't all unbridled optimism, with a number of delegates more skeptical about what may be around the corner for the city.
"Apart from the worrying price of residential property, speculative money has started to drip into Shanghai's commercial property sector," said Miyaguchi Takehito, director of Mizuho Corporate Bank's China branch. "This is exactly what happened in Japan in the late 1980s, a trend which was followed by the property bubble bursting just ten years later.
"China really shouldn't follow Japan's old route of putting so much reliance on the real-estate sector to prop up the national economy," he added.
The lasting effect the Expo could have on the quality of life for Shanghai's residents was also debated.
"As the Expo is publicized with the slogan 'Better City, Better Life,' the city should at least do more to make its tap water potable," Zhou Muzhi, professor of Tokyo Keizai University, told the Global Times. "The potable water initiative was announced in July 2009, saying that the tap water would be the same standard as that in Europe by the Expo. But who dares drink the tap water here now?"
Another delegate agreed. "I view the failure to deliver potable tap water as a policy default on the deadline," Chai Yanwei, professor at the College of Urban and Environmental Sciences of Peking University, told the Global Times.
