Business hub buzzes with activity and promise

The Hongqiao Central Business District has rightly earned a reputation as one of Shanghai’s most vibrant hubs for company headquarters. Just ask two prominent German companies who have set up regional operations there.

German engineering and electronics giant Bosch GmbH and Rheinmetall Automotive are among the 289 domestic and foreign companies operating in the Hongqiao CBD.

The companies include 27 regional headquarters of multinational companies, 121 publicly listed firms and 125 major industry leaders, according to the Hongqiao Central Business District Administrative Committee.

“It has been a top priority for us to attract more companies to set up headquarters here as part of our efforts to raise the Hongqiao CBD’s reputation as a major business area, with powerful tentacles radiating outward,” said Zhu Yinghua, deputy director of the commercial department at the administrative committee.

“We have introduced mea¬sures to support companies locating here, including first-class amenities covering health care, education, hotels and retail services,” Zhu added.

Bosch was one of the early companies to settle in Hongqiao. The company said its China business has thrived since then.

Bosch opened its China headquarters on Fuquan Road N. in the district in 2011. The 980 million yuan (US$139 million) facility is the company’s largest in the Asia-Pacific region, employing nearly 3,000 employees.

“The Hongqiao CBD in western part of the city and the Lingang area on the east serve as the two wings for Shanghai’s future development,” said Chen Yudong, president of Bosch China.

“Perfectly located between Shanghai and the core of the Yangtze River Delta region, Hongqiao boasts very convenient access to both central Shanghai and cities across the region, where the majority of Bosch’s China investment is located,” he added.

At the end of November, Bosch broke ground on construction of a fuel-cell center in the neighboring Jiangsu Province city of Wuxi.

It will be the first center of its kind for Bosch outside Germany and is scheduled to start production in 2021.

The company said it will also establish a China Innovation and Software Center, with an initial investment of over 35 million yuan, by mid-2020 in the city.

In 2018, Bosch China reported sales of 112.6 billion yuan and said China held its largest workforce outside Germany. China is Bosch’s second-largest market worldwide.

Rheinmetal l Automotive, a rather later comer to the Hongqiao CBD compared with Bosch, holds similar optimism about basing its China business growth on prospects in the region.

The Dusseldorf-based company, which now employs about 5,000 people in China, moved into its regional headquarters to Shenchang Road in Hongqiao in 2016.

“China now accounts for one quarter of our global sales,” said Lothar Schneider, president of KSPG (China) Investment Co. KSPG AG is a member of the Rheinmetall Group.

“In 2019, we expect our sales to rise between 12 and 14 percent to around 9 billion yuan,” Schneider said.

Rheinmetall Automotive reported sales of 7.8 billion yuan in China last year, compared with about 2.5 million yuan in 1997 when the company set up its first joint venture in the nation.