As the city's top official, another big test Yu received in Shanghai was the World Expo in 2010. The event that lasted six months attracted more than 73 million visitors from home and abroad, with record daily arrivals of 1.03 million.

Thanks to Yu's instruction of "check and improve our work every day," the Expo ended being an "astounding success," despite disorder during its trial operation. It won applause from Jean-Pierre Lafon, president of the International Exhibitions Bureau (BIE) at its closing ceremony.

When leaving Shanghai upon his election into the top leadership, Yu encouraged officials of the metropolis to always maintain "unwavering confidence, pioneering spirit" to build a better future of Shanghai.

Yu's reform campaign began in Yantai, where he initiated one of the country's first housing reform projects as mayor of the coastal city in Shandong Province in the 1980s.

He won the nickname of "mayor of brands" in Qingdao, another coastal city in Shandong. His strategy of brand image building made quite a few brand names in the city, including Haier and Hisense, two electronic home appliances manufactures well known at home and abroad.

His brainchild of building Qingdao into an international metropolis brought in an influx of foreign investment to the city, one of the 14 coastal frontiers that the central government decided to open to the world in 1984.

As the Party chief in Hubei Province, Yu greatly boosted the development of provincial capital Wuhan and its adjacent cities. He also extended the province's development focus to counties as a way of seeking new growth momentum.

Yu was born in 1945 in Yan'an, the cradle of the CPC, into a revolutionary's family. His parents became ministerial-level officials after New China was founded in 1949.

Yu still remembers his parents' teaching, "Seek personal integrity but never privilege."

He received higher education at the Harbin Military Engineering Institute in Heilongjiang Province. He worked at a radio factory in Zhangjiakou of Hebei Province as a technician for a few years after graduation. He was minister of construction before he was appointed Hubei Province's Party chief.

Yu's wife, Zhang Zhikai, has retired. They have a son.