Economy of Shanghai

As a result of economic reforms that began in the late 1970s, the amount of commerce and trade in Shanghai has increased dramatically.

Shanghai now has a stock market, several foreign banks, and a variety of hotels, clubs, bars, and restaurants.

Since 1990 the central Chinese government has encouraged foreign investment by relaxing regulations and lessening bureaucratic procedures.

Investment in Shanghai has increased substantially, giving rise to a huge construction boom.

Retailing has also mushroomed, and the city now offers many of the finest department stores and shops in China.

The economy benefits from good education facilities that produce a large, well-trained labor force, with many people skilled at highly complex and technical manufacturing jobs.

Shanghai is China’s leading center of industry, and industrial activity ranges from smelting at China’s largest integrated iron and steel plant, located at suburban Baoshan, to the manufacture of complex machinery and precision equipment, such as cellular telephones, fax machines, color television tubes, automobiles, textiles, foodstuffs, and electronics.

Although manufacturing in other Chinese cities has increased and Shanghai’s share of the country’s total industrial output has declined in recent years, the city remains a manufacturing giant.

In the late 1990s it contributed 7 percent of the total value of industrial production in China, and Shanghai’s workers are the most productive in the country.

Shanghai’s port is the largest in China.

Major highways and railroads radiate northwest, west, and south to Nanjing, Beijing, Hefei, Hangzhou, Ningbo, and other major cities and towns.

The city has an expanding subway system.

A high-speed magnetic levitation (maglev) train began operating in 2002, running from the city center to the Pudong International Airport, which opened in 1999 in the eastern Pudong district.

Its opening relegated the old Hongqiao International Airport in Shanghai’s southwestern Hongqiao suburb to domestic flights.