SHANGHAI aims to grow into an "excellent global city" by 2040, implementing best practice while avoiding the pitfalls that have beset similar booming cities, a senior Party official said yesterday.

Speaking during a plenary session of the Chinese Communist Party Shanghai Committee which approved a master plan for the city's development over the next two decades, Party secretary Han Zheng said city planners had previously focussed on how to catch up with the best cities in the world, but planners were now moving beyond that.

"Now, when we are designing the future of Shanghai, we need to consider the ways of preventing missteps — especially those irreversible ones — from the lessons drawn by other best cities," he said.