SHANGHAI, April 18 (Xinhua) -- Frequently hitting the headlines over the past few years, Shanghai's Pudong has become the destinations for several significant foreign investments including the youngest Disney Resort in the world, Tesla's first gigafactory outside the United States, as well as Costco's second store on the Chinese mainland.
After 30 years of rapid development and opening-up, the area has turned into a booming highland in China for businesses from home and abroad, chasing new opportunities, and a hub linking China and the rest of the world.
Here are some facts and figures reflecting the significant achievements of Pudong over the past three decades:
-- Pudong's regional GDP surged more than 210 times over the past 30 years from 6 billion yuan (about 849 million U.S. dollars) in 1990 to 1.27 trillion yuan in 2019.
-- Fiscal revenue of Pudong jumped from 1.1 billion yuan in 1993 to 431.6 billion yuan in 2019.
-- Foreign capital flowing into the area soared to 8.77 billion U.S. dollars in 2019 from 13 million U.S. dollars 30 years earlier.
-- By the end of 2019, Pudong has been home to 332 regional headquarters of multinational enterprises and 240 R&D centers.
-- Pudong is famous for its iconic skyscrapers, including the 632-meter-tall Shanghai Tower, the tallest building in China, receiving more than 1 million visitors every year.
-- The Shanghai port maintained its top place in the world for 10 years in a row in terms of container throughput in 2019. The container throughput of the port totaled 43.3 million twenty-foot equivalent units last year.
-- Shanghai Pudong International Airport handled 3.63 million tonnes of cargos in 2019, ranking amongst the top cargo hub airports in the world.
-- As a pillar of Pudong's economy, the financial sector saw its added value reached 383.5 billion yuan in 2019, contributing about 30 percent of the area's total GDP.
Lujiazui, sitting directly opposite the Bund, has developed into an influential financial zone in the country. More than 860 financial institutions licensed by China's banking, securities and insurance regulators, as well as their subsidiaries and branches, have gathered in Lujiazui. Over 75 percent of brokerages in China have offices in the zone.
-- China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone (FTZ), the first pilot FTZ in the country, was established in Pudong in 2013. A total of 120 institutional innovations rolled out there have been replicated and promoted nationwide ever since.
-- U.S. electric car company Tesla built its first gigafactory outside the United States in 2019 in the new Lingang area of Shanghai pilot FTZ, with a designed annual production capacity of 500,000 units. The Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory broke ground in early 2019 and delivered its first batch of made-in-China Model 3 sedans one year later.
-- Pudong has the production base of Cadillac, a luxury brand of General Motors. All Cadillac models in the Chinese market are produced by SAIC-GM Cadillac plant in Jinqiao, Pudong.
By 2019, Cadillac had sold more than 1 million cars in China.
-- More than 400 drugs are under research, and 135 projects are in clinical trials in the Zhangjiang Pharma Valley, a state-level bio-medicine industrial base located in Pudong. It produces 15 percent of China's original new drugs and 10 percent of the country's innovative medical devices.
Roche, the first foreign pharmaceutical company, settling in Zhangjiang in 1993, has developed 22 products in China, covering eight therapeutic fields.
-- Pudong is home to the Shanghai Disney Resort, the first Disney resort on the Chinese mainland. Opening in mid-June 2016, Shanghai Disney Resort now has seven themed lands and more than 12,000 employees.
The Disney Pixar Toy Story Land, the resort's first major expansion, opened in 2018, making the Shanghai Disney Resort the fastest-expanding resort in Disney's history.
-- Located in Pudong, the Shanghai New York University is the first Sino-American university operating as an independent legal entity in China. It now has about 2,000 students and faculty members from over 80 countries and regions.
The university's new campus is currently under construction in the New Bund of Pudong (Qiantan Area), which will accommodate up to 4,000 undergraduate and graduate students. The construction covers more than 110,000 square meters and is expected to be completed by 2022. Enditem
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