OUTSIDE the window are the futuristic shapes of Pudong's skyline. Fifteen years ago, these ultramodern glass and steel superstructures reaching for the sky were only vague dreams for Wang Yagu. Now they are real scenes visible through his office windows.

One of the few members dispatched by the city government to join the frontline of Pudong's development from the very start, Wang has witnessed and experienced all the tremendous changes that have occurred to this magical land.

In the early 1990s, as the deputy general manager of Lujiazui Development (Group) Co Ltd (developer of the Lujiazui Financial and Trade Zone), Wang remembered bringing foreign visitors to the then highest building in Pudong, a residential building called Tianhougong.

They all laughed when they looked at the scene below: the shabby farmers' houses, yellow and green crop land, old docks and factory warehouses.

"When they heard that we intended to spend five to 10 years turning the countryside of Lujiazui into the city's future CBD, they shook their head and said that would be impossible even in 20 years," Wang said.

Innovative mission

Before he was appointed to the Pudong post, Wang was the general manager of Shanghai Friendship Department Store. On a hot July afternoon in 1990, Wang received a summons from the municipal government to attend a meeting.

As the general manager of a State-owned business, attending official meetings was nothing new to him. But that meeting was a little special.

Instead of listening to reports from senior government leaders, Wang and about 20 others, mostly general managers of State-owned enterprises, were asked to make a 5-minute speech relating to the development of Pudong, which at that time was a hot new topic.

Wang had not thought the meeting would turn out to be an interview by the city leaders of potential candidates to lead the Pudong development team.

Altogether 18 people were chosen at that meeting, and they became known as "18 pines transplanted from Puxi to Pudong".

The working conditions were harsh. Even a fan was a luxury during hot summers in the office. There were no good restaurants in Lujiazui 15 years ago. The one Wang usually picked for lunch was run by a farmer whose hens and dogs had free run of the place.

"During the early years, we had no cars, not even salaries. We were still taking our salaries from the former company in Puxi," he said.

"The Pudong development project was like a show. The arena was already set up, and actors, including me, had stepped onto the stage. Although the script was not available, the outcome was clear - there was no allowance for failure."

Painful relocation

In 1992, Wang was put in charge of Fortune World Development Co Ltd. The company, jointly invested by the Lujiazui Group and the Chia Tai Group, was responsible for developing the core area in Lujiazui, 30 hectares along the waterfront.

The area, which was like the eye of Pudong, was a source of great excitement for Wang, but also of great pressure.

"I could feel the huge potential of the land despite the many shabby farmers' houses and old factories," Wang said. His first step was to clear the land and move all the residents out of the area.

It was easy to talk about big principles, that the value of the land would be far higher as a financial centre than as space for warehouses or crops, for instance, but it turned out to be difficult to take any solid steps forward.

"We could quite understand locals' reluctance to leave a place where they had lived and worked for so long," Wang said.

In the early months, angry residents surrounded his office building to protest his actions.

As the work gained support from the media and municipal government people became more co-operative.

"There were many moving stories during the relocation process," Wang recalled, and the one he still talks about concerns the Lixin Shipyard.

"When the shipyard's new workshops were still under construction, the old factory, to give way to our work, compressed their work site to one-third of its original size while maintaining their daily production," he said.

Later, to make way for the construction of a waterfront avenue along the Huangpu River, the factory gave up all its manufacturing base in Lujiazui.

To memorialize its contribution, the local government set up an anchor sculpture on the waterfront avenue.

Speedy take-off

As Wang predicted, the area gained immediate attention from developers worldwide when it was ready for investment in August 1993. The first client to lease land from Wang's company was the Taipei-based Aurora Group. The Aurora Building it later erected next to the river has become one of the landmarks of Pudong.

The news of the successful lease of the first building site spread quickly. Within 50 days, four other parcels totalling five hectares were leased, where later the Shangri-La Hotel and Super Brand Mall were erected.

With the completion of the CitiBank Building last year and the start of construction of another office building this year, Wang and the Fortune World Company he leads have finished their major mission in developing the core area of Lujiazui into the new CBD of Shanghai.

When asked about the most difficult time he ever encountered, Wang mentioned the Asian financial crisis in 1997.

He remembered waiting several hours in the cold outside the gate of a company simply to collect a small sum of money owed to his company, to alleviate capital shortage.

"The current Lujiazui is just what the original design mapped out - a first rate financial, trade, shopping and entertainment centre," Wang said with a smile. As the one who experienced and fueled all these changes, he has good reason to smile.