Li Hua, a model worker with Shanghai Pudong Iron and Steel Company, places the symbolic "last flame" collected from the factory's workshop in a hurricane lamp to keep it alive yesterday. The 94-year-old steel mill will be shut down to make way for the 2010 World Expo.

Shanghai Daily news

A factory on the site of World Expo Shanghai that is almost a century old ceased operations yesterday in the name of progress.

Workers collected a symbolic "last flame" in the workshop and preserved it for a new start.

The Shanghai Pudong Iron and Steel Company, established in 1913, will light the first flame in its new site in Luojing, Baoshan District, in 102 days.

The factory has been moved to make way for the construction of the 5.28-square-kilometer Expo site.

Factory employee Li Hua, honored "Model Worker in Shanghai" from 2004 to 2006, lit a two-meter kindling from the last flaming iron kiln in the production line.

Li put the flame into a hurricane lamp which was later escorted to Bao Steel Group's branch in Baoshan District.

Bai Wenhua, chairman of the Shanghai World Expo Land Holding Co Ltd, thanked the Shanghai Pudong Iron and Steel Company for its sacrifice as well as its contribution for World Expo Shanghai.

The flame, indicating workers' enthusiasm for a successful Expo, "should keep burning forever," said Bai.

The land the factory has handed over to organizers is almost 40 percent of the total area of the Expo site.

Several permanent pavilions, such as the China Pavilion and the four theme pavilions, will be built on the land.

The factory began to give the land to the organizers in June, 2006. The total handover of land will be completed before November. Expo organizers have relocated more than 270 companies as well as 18,000 families to make way for the event.