Shanghai's most-skilled face off in major competition

The Shanghai Skill Competition, themed around skills in the city's "Four Brands" – services, manufacturing, shopping and culture – kicked off on Tuesday.

The competition took place at four parallel venues in Yangpu, Xuhui, Huangpu and the Pudong New Area. More than 1,100 entrants faced off in over 100 competition events.

At the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition and Convention Center, 371 players were competing for six championship spots in the manufacturing sector.

Officials of Pudong said they hope to promote craftsmanship among young people who attended the contests, as this skill is crucial in manufacturing.

Xu Aomen who won the auto-body repair title at the 45th World Skill Competition earlier this year made an appearance at the contest to share his experiences with contestants. He said attending the competition and winning a championship was the chance of a lifetime, but getting there wasn't easy.

Chen Shenjie, a student from Shanghai Dianji University, told Shanghai Daily that he looks up to Xu and hopes to bring honor to China in 2021, when 46th World Skill Competition will be held in Shanghai.

During the contest, Chen made it to the final round of the mechanical components control contest.

Xu Dan, referee of the industrial robot programming contest, said they started at 8am. A total of 15 players attended the contest.

“The players must finish programming and debugging the robots and install mechanical arms on them within three hours,” said Xu. “Many of the players started preparing for the games two months ago.”

Xu added that contestants were all performing well at this year's event.