Shanghai marked the one-year countdown of World Expo in a joyous atmosphere on May 1. On this same day, the government of China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region reported the first confirmed case of influenza A/h1n1 in the city, which is related to a Mexican man who arrived in Hong Kong by air via Shanghai on the preceding day, April 30. So, residents in this east China metropolis felt much overstrained by the unexpected event.
Within less than 72 hours, nevertheless, all those who have traveled on the same flight with the Mexican man were identified and sorted out. And Shanghai municipality stepped up efforts to cope with an A (HlN1) virus in strict compliance with China's national standards and plans to take "all necessary precautions".
The 2010 Shanghai World Expo is expected to draw some 70 million domestic and foreign visitors, a top organizing official has said, and this will add great difficulties to the city's urban traffic, environment sanitation and epidemic diseases control.
"In public transport, we have already made ample, sufficient preparations," said Shanghai Executive Vice-Mayor Yang Xiong, who is also an executive deputy director of the World Expo 2010 Shanghai Executive Committee. Shanghai is expected to put 12 new traffic lines into service on the eve of the World Expo 2010 with a total length of up to 400 kilometers, Yang said.
Since March 2008, he acknowledged, the city of Shanghai has checked up and organized a host of "hard ware" transport operation facilities and such "soft ware" support systems as complete sets of safety rules and regulations, including a couple of emergency schedules.
Meanwhile, after years of strenuous efforts, the city proper has made a remarkable improvement in its environment. A "green" coverage has reached more than 38 percent, the once-seriously polluted Suzhou River has turned clean and limpid; and the good-air quality rate has been kept at over 85 percent for six consecutive years.
Shanghai municipality would input more than 82 billion RMB yuan (about 11.8 billion US dollars) on about 260 projects based on the city's fourth round of "three-year environment action plan".
Back in August 2008, Shanghai instituted a leading group to commence preparatory work for the fulfillment of the "600-day action plan", which was devised to raise the civilization and etiquette standards, said Chen Zhenmin, the vice-chairman of the Shanghai Municipal Socialist Ethical (or spirit) Civilization Construction Committee Office.
To date, Chen further noted, approximately 870,000 locals in Shanghai have partaken in job training for various service trades, and a total of 3.503 million residents from local urban communities have received training in this regard.
With a much greater impetus initiated by Shanghai metropolitan, 25 cities around China, particularly those rich cities of the Yangtze River Delta, have joined in to match the endeavor simultaneously for the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai. Consequently, World Expo-themed trips would help to readjust or straighten out in an all-round way the varied tourist, transport, cultural and exhibiting resources of cities in the region, and activities of "World Expo into Communities" are likely to extend into all leading cities in and around the Yangtze delta.
By People's Daily Online and contributed by PD reporters Hao Hong and Wu Yan
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