SHANGHAI - "A single bed in Puxi is preferable to a room in Pudong," a saying that had been popular in Shanghai till the 1980s goes.

The saying epitomized the sharp contrast of the laggard region east of the Huangpu River in Shanghai to the early-developed region on the opposite side of the river, as Pudong was occupied mostly by farmland and sparse industrial firms back then.

The backwardness associated with Pudong has long become a thing of the past after 28 years of development, during which the area has turned into a new symbol and pioneer of the country's reform and opening up.

Profound changes

For most visitors to Shanghai, a main attraction is the skyline of Pudong with its three towering skyscrapers, including the 632-meter-tall Shanghai Tower, currently China's tallest building and the world's second tallest.

The colossal buildings that meet the clouds, however, are only a small part of the profound changes from Pudong's development since 1990, when central authorities announced a decision to develop and open up Pudong.

"The decision pushed Pudong to the frontline of China's reform and opening up," said Weng Zuliang, secretary of the Pudong New Area Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

Over the past 28 years, the local economy expanded from 6 billion yuan ($876 million) in 1990 to 965.1 billion yuan last year, an average annual growth of 15.1 percent, data showed.

Covering about one-fifth of Shanghai's total area and home to a quarter of the permanent residents, Pudong now creates near one-third of the municipality's regional GDP.

In the first half of this year, the local GDP rose 8 percent to 501.5 billion yuan, accounting for 32.2 percent of Shanghai's total, up by 0.2 percentage points from 2017.

The fiscal revenue rose more than 350 times from 1993 to 2017. The per-capita residential disposable income rose 3.1 times from 2003 to 60,715 yuan last year. Total fixed-asset investment exceeded 2.3 trillion yuan during the 28 years since reform and opening up.

Favorable policies and easy market access in Pudong attracted the extensive participation of foreign investors.

In the 1990-2017 period, Pudong saw a total contracted foreign direct investment of $196.2 billion. The area is currently home to 281 regional headquarters of multinational companies.