Xu Kuangdi

Xu Kuangdi
徐匡迪

Mayor of Shanghai
In office February 1995 – December 2001
Preceded by	Huang Ju
Succeeded by	Chen Liangyu
Personal details
Born	December 1937 (age 79) Tongxiang, Zhejiang, China
Political party	Communist Party of China

Xu Kuangdi KmstkNO FREng (Chinese: 徐匡迪; pinyin: Xú Kuāngdí; born December 1937) is a Chinese politician and scientist, best known for his term as Mayor of Shanghai from 1995 to 2001. He supervised the transformation of Shanghai during his administration into a center for international investment and trade that helped lead the intensive development of China's economy. Between 2003 and 2008, Xu served as Vice-Chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

Xu was born in Tongxiang, Zhejiang province, near Shanghai. He graduated from Hangzhou High School. He graduated from the Beijing Institute of Iron and Steel Engineering in 1959, during the midst of the Great Leap Forward, and was a professor there from 1959 to 1963, then at the Shanghai Institute of Engineering from 1963 to 1971, through the height of the Cultural Revolution. He did not join the Communist Party of China until 1983. He studied in Britain in 1982 and 1983 and worked in Sweden from 1984 to 1985; he also won a national award for his design of a stainless steel pipe for use in aircraft production.