City welcomes new batch of key companies

Shanghai presented certificates to a new batch of 21 regional headquarters and 10 research and development centers of transnational enterprises on Wednesday. 

Among the 31 companies are two Global Fortune 500 enterprises.

Most of the companies are from the key industries that Shanghai is laying emphasis on. Seven are in biomedicine , four in the field of digital information technology and artificial intelligence, four working on intelligent manufacturing, three integrated circuits and three in new material technology.

BioMérieux, a multinational biotechnology company founded in France, for instance, has set up a R&D center in Shanghai. Its Asia-Pacific headquarters is also in Shanghai, which was the company’s third largest base for R&D, production and operation.

“Our company has posted an annual revenue growth of 15 percent in China, and has increased our investment here for two consecutive years,” said Theresa Huang, CFO of Biomerieux China. “We’ve benefited a lot from the good business environment in Shanghai including tax policies as well as the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta.”

Valmet Oyj, a Finnish company offering technologies, automation systems and services for the pulp, paper and energy industries, has also made large investments in China. 

The company has set up four world-class factories, three service centers, an automation technology center and five sales offices in China, with around 1,800 staff, according to Zhu Xiangdong, CEO of Valmet China.

Of the COVID-19 pandemic, Zhu said: “We did see certain negative impacts on our business for now, but we believe that we can still see a positive annual revenue growth for the whole of 2020 in China.”

The city, in making efforts to boost foreign investment, has laid emphasis on attracting transnational companies to set up their regional headquarters and R&D centers in Shanghai.

It has launched several support policies including the 3.0 version of the reform plan on improving the business environment, 32 measures on enhancing investment, and 24 measures on further using foreign investment.

The city government has held nine round table meetings on cooperation between government authorities and companies since the COVID-19 outbreak, to help foreign businesses deal with difficulties.

So far, Shanghai had introduced 730 regional headquarters and 466 R&D centers.

In the first quarter, the total paid-in foreign investment in the city reached US$4.669 billion, up 4.5 percent from the same period last year.