Shanghai boasts a $2.6B stimulus package all its own

Feb 24, 2009 | 05:30 AM |

The Olympic Games might be over, but China's enthusiasm for grand building projects is alive and kicking.

As public attention turned away from the world's most populous nation when the Olympics ended, the country was already gearing up for its next appearance on the world stage the Shanghai World Expo in 2010.

And like everything else in China, the authorities aren't doing things half way. Following in the footsteps of the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese government is renovating old city corners, having already relocated 18,000 families from the exposition site. The enormous construction project, with an estimated budget of 18 billion yuan ($2.63 billion), is expected to be completed by the end of September.

Everything will be done on a scale befitting the vast nation Baosteel Group Corp. Ltd. has already provided more than 85,000 tons of steel, primarily for construction of the major permanent venues, compared with a mere 4,500 tons of steel used to build the Crystal Palace at the original London World Expo in 1851.....