From 1989 to the early 1990s, China was undergoing transformation from the centrally planned system to the market economy. The disintegration of the former Soviet Union and the 1989 political storm in China led many people to doubt the country's course - could China's reforms go into reverse? Could they endanger socialism?

"Pudong's development was essential to rebuilding Shanghai's status in China and the world. Still more importantly, it was a bold experiment to explore the path of socialism," Hu said.

"The past 15 years has been a period of turning dreams into reality," Hu recalled. Three obvious problems included: lack of financial resources; the Asian financial crisis; and the transformation of old ideas.

When the Asian financial crisis swept across many countries in the region in 1997, Pudong's development was still in its primary period. "The economic crisis put great political pressure on China," Hu said. Given that China's most important projects were concentrated in Pudong and Shanghai, people wondered whether the construction of Pudong would be carried through to completion.

One typical case was the failure of Japanese retail store Yaohan, which announced its bankruptcy during the financial crisis. "But on its opening day in Shanghai, one million customers visited the store, which broke historical records," Hu said.

In order to re-build investor confidence, the Shanghai Municipal Government immediately decided to purchase 37 per cent of the company's stock. "One thing we learnt from Pudong's development is: when the market did not work properly, government had to make certain interventions to support the 'invisible hand'," Hu said.

Pudong's exploration also rapidly urbanized 230,000 farmers. "We realized that the quality of people did not match up with the speed of economic development," Hu said.

For a while the ex-farmers had to be specially instructed on how to walk on roads, since some of them carried long sticks while walking and traffic accidents frequently occurred at the time.

"Now, a clear path has been laid out for Pudong's development. The holding of the 2010 World Expo is an opportunity to further develop Pudong and Shanghai. But we are never satisfied with the achievements we have made," Hu said. Yang Yang