This Day, That Year: April 18

Editor's note: This year marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of New China.

On April 18, 1990, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council announced the development plan for Pudong in Shanghai, which is now the Pudong New Area, as seen in the item from China Daily.

Thursday marks its 29th anniversary. The area has risen from rural farmland to become an engine for economic and social development in the city and the nation.

During recent decades, with the area's skyline changing rapidly, Pudong, on the east bank of the Huangpu River, has become an international financial, shipping and trading center for Shanghai and China.

It has been transformed into an outward-looking and modern urban district with multiple functions.

Pudong New Area is a symbol of China's reform and opening-up.

Compared with 1990, the GDP in Pudong has risen from 6 billion yuan ($894 million) to 1 trillion yuan last year. This year, the number is expected to grow by 8 percent.

In September 2013, the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone, the first of its kind, was established in Pudong. It is an experimental field for reforms in the financial and other sectors. The large number of overseas companies that have established bases in the Shanghai FTZ demonstrates the allure of the zone.

By June, there were 55,000 newly registered companies, 20 percent of which were joint ventures.

During the very early days, only 5 percent of the companies in the zone were joint ventures.

Shanghai authorities have pledged to continue advancing the development of the pilot zone to widen opening-up. A total of 127 systematic innovations first implemented in the FTZ have been promoted nationwide over the past five years.