Shanghai, a leading economic powerhouse in east China, will further improve its industrial structure and give priority to development of modern service industry in the coming five years.

According to development research center under the city government, Shanghai will base growth of the modern service industry on a digitization drive and put financial and logistics sectors high on the development agent for the 2006-2010 period.

The city will take five years to build itself into an information service center, home to international information service groups and one of the telecommunications hubs in the whole Asian and Pacific region.

The research center predicted that the information sector in Shanghai would realize 100 billion yuan (12.33 billion U.S. dollars) in value-added output by 2010. The financial sector expects to realize 150 billion yuan (18.5 billion U.S. dollars) in output value, or more than 10 percent of the city's GDP.

The logistics sector will claim another 10 percent of the local economy by then, with its annual container turnover reaching 25 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent unit) and annual air cargo turnover at 3.2 million tons.

Between 2006 and 2010, Shanghai will build a group of digital cultural bases and parks and speed up development of education, training, sports and entertainment. The cultural industry is expected to annually generate 50 billion yuan (6.17 billion U.S. dollars) in value-added output.

In the five-year period, exhibition business, tourism and community services will be expanded in Shanghai. By 2010, the city will organize 400 international exhibitions and 1,000 international conferences a year.

As part of Shanghai's efforts to boost the modern service industry, an association of modern service industry was established at the end of last year, covering financial, logistics, commerce, real estate, information service and exhibition sector.

Source: Xinhua