Shanghai boosts innovation, restructuring(4)

Statistics from Shanghai Customs show that the export and import volumes of the city's private companies exceeded $125 billion in the first three quarters of 2011, 27.2 percent higher than State-owned outfits and with a rate of growth of 33.5 percent, compared with the same period in 2010.

"There are many privately owned trading companies in Shanghai now, including some that have moved from other smaller cities because of the Shanghai's rapid development as a trading center," said Huang Yi, manager of the vehicle equipment exporter Shanghai Qinfen Trading Co Ltd.

Huang added that most of Shanghai's manufacturers and suppliers have applied high-technology to the production process to meet the increasing high-end demand from overseas clients.

However, the trading structure of the city is also changing, with the import volume gradually overtaking exports.

The import volume in Shanghai in the first three quarters of 2011 was 7 percent higher than the export volume, with a difference of nearly 11.5 billion yuan.

Shen Xiuqing, the owner of Shanghai Qingyuan Economic & Trading Co Ltd, has switched the focus of her company away from furniture exports to the import of durian (a delicious, but extremely smelly, fruit).

The change in focus came after export orders fell dramatically in the wake of the global financial meltdown in 2008.

"I've noticed that more people are willing to try imported foods, especially fruit such as durian, so in 2009 I became the first Chinese importer of Malaysian durian and the business is going quite well," said Shen.

Shen added that she plans to import more foodstuffs from other countries as more residents realize that eating imported food and being more experimental is a new trend in modern lifestyle.

Since 2009, Shanghai's municipal government has launched a development strategy to speed up the service industry, including finance, trading, information services and innovative industry, with the help of SMEs.

"SMEs should restructure their industrial structure by upgrading innovative products and providing better after-sales services," said Zhang Huiming, director of the Enterprise Research Institute at Fudan University in Shanghai.

Zhang added that finding workers who've been given professional training is also extremely important for SMEs to help to restructure the employee groups and produce higher quality products.

Indeed, among the people who have benefited most from the growth and expansion of the service sector are the tens of thousands of migrant workers who have found ample new opportunities to move up the social ladder in this famously competitive town.

Take 24-year-old Ma Chao for instance. He left his hometown of Yancheng in Jiangsu province after graduating from technical college in 2009 to try his luck in Shanghai. He said he was lucky to have come at a time when demand for better-educated migrant workers was beginning to rise in the service sector.

"I was offered a number of jobs, but chose my present one working at the sales department of a local chemical company," he said. His job, which mainly involves servicing the needs of clients, pays a monthly salary of 3,500 yuan, which, he said, is "better than expected".

What's more, "there are many opportunities in my area", he said.