The paper is motivated by some thoughts around the construction of Shanghai International Trade Center ， such as what are the gaps between Shanghai and a mature trade center city in the worldwide， and what lessons can be drawn from the latter. Tokyo is a typical and mature hinterland trade center city， and is also the best-known trade center to Shanghai. Therefore， the paper takes Tokyo as a contrast example， analyzes its characters in merchandise trade， then compares them with the merchandise trade of Shanghai， and fi nally makes clear the critical construction approaches of Shanghai International Trade Center from the perspective of internationalmerchandise trade.