With its annual per capita gross domestic product (GDP) reaching 5,000 US dollars, Shanghai is entering a new stage of reaching annual per capita GDP at 8,000 to 10,000 US dollars.

Shanghai has already launched development projects including a tourist district along the banks of the Huangpu River, two deep-water ports and further development in its suburbs. Last year, it also won the bid to host the 2010 World Expo.

Shen Yufang, a professor specializing in urban development with East China Normal University, considers that the strategies all contribute to the upgrading of the city's different development phases. The Chongming project is a new impetus driving the city's development.

According to Feng Guoqin, Shanghai's vice mayor, the city has expanded its development from downtown prosperity to the urbanization of its suburban areas, to the progress of neighboring cities within the Yangtze Delta.

"Accounting for one-fifth of Shanghai's territory, Chongming Island is expected to provide ample opportunity for the city's further development and industrial structural adjustment with its low-cost land and labor force," Feng said.

"The whole development planning process must be based on the premise of ecological protection for the island, which boasts well-preserved ecological resources," Feng added.

Experts also say that Chongming will play a special role in Shanghai's suburban development strategies, shifting the focus away from productive forces distribution and infrastructure construction in the city.

Strategically located at the intersection of China's coastal economic zone and the Yangtze Delta area, Chongming is also expected to serve as a "springboard", creating closer ties between Shanghai and the delta region, experts said.

A tunnel project recently approved by the central government will run 17 meters beneath the Yangtze River to connect Shanghai's newly-developed Pudong district to Chongming, whose development has long been blocked by inconvenient transportation.

In 2002, per capita GDP in Chongming, China's third largest island, was only one-fifth of Shanghai's average, with transportation to the city's downtown area entirely reliant on ferryboats.

Construction of the tunnel project, which will involve a total investment of 12.2 billion yuan (1.47 billion US dollars), will begin this year and be completed by 2007.

In addition, Chongming is likely to be assigned the tasks of building supplementary gymnasiums and processing food for the 2010World Expo in Shanghai, which will greatly promote the island's development, said Gong Deqing, secretary of Chongming County's committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

(Xinhua News Agency March 31, 2003)