China's ongoing modernization drive has made it possible for Shanghai to become a world city capable of showcasing the country's strength in the future, Mayor Chen Liangyu said Sunday.
Chen said at the 14th International Business Leaders' Advisory Council for the Mayor of Shanghai that China's entry into the World Trade Organization enabled Shanghai to gain the position it deserved in the global economy.
The rapid technological progress across the world also made it possible that Shanghai could achieve a leap forward in economic development through a technological leap forward, he added.
Describing the coming decade as a key period for the city's development, the mayor said that by 2007, Shanghai's per capita gross domestic product would reach 7,500 US dollars and the city would have a bigger share of the national economy than its current 5 percent.
Shanghai is striving to turn itself into an international financial, business and shipping center.
Frank Sartor, mayor of Sydney, Australia, Klaus Wowereit, mayor of Berlin, Germany, and experts from the United Nations, the United States and New Zealand also made presentations at the forum, focusing on ways to build Shanghai as a world city.
The annual forum was initiated 14 years ago by then mayor of Shanghai, Zhu Rongji, now China's premier.
(Xinhua News Agency November 4, 2002)
