Lingang to strengthen reform and innovation, investment forum told

The Lingang Special Area held its first investment forum on Sunday after it was officially included in the Shanghai free trade zone in late August.

The forum attracted over 400 elites from leading enterprises in cutting-edge industries, such as integrated circuit, artificial intelligence, biomedicine, international trade and cross-border logistics, and large financial and investment institutions, industrial parks and industrial associations in the special area.

Zhu Zhisong, deputy secretary-general of Shanghai government and executive deputy director of the Lingang Special Area Administrative Committee, pointed out the special area would give full play to its advantages of independent development, reform and innovation, focus on the overall plan and make every effort to promote the innovation of mechanism, the implementation of policies, industrial investment and other tasks.

“The new area will further strengthen reform and innovation so that the road of further opening-up and economic freedom will become wider and wider,” Zhu said.

“We will implement the opening-up policies and systems with strong international market competitiveness as soon as possible, accelerate the liberalization of investment and trade, foster new momentum of growth and strive to build the special area into a fertile land for the development of enterprises and a hot soil for innovation and entrepreneurship,” Zhu added.

Li Jun, deputy director of the Shanghai Financial Work Bureau, emphasized that a higher level of opening-up and innovation in the financial sector is one of the important contents for the Lingang Special Area to build a special economic functional zone with more international market influence and competitiveness.

“Shanghai Financial Work Bureau is working with the administrative committee of the special area and national financial regulatory authority to study the issuance of various policies to support the financial development of the special area, especially in cross-border finance and opening capital account,” Li said.

Sci-tech innovation

“At the same time, we should make use of the special advantages of the special area, strengthen the linkage between financial capital and scientific and technological innovation resources, and create a systematic and complete investment and financing ecological environment.

“We will use capital to serve scientific and technological innovation, promote industrial agglomeration and upgrade functional level,” Li told the gathering on Sunday.

Que Bo, deputy general manager of Shanghai Stock Exchange, said the cluster of high-end industries and solid foundation of science and technology innovation in the Lingang Special Area is the guarantee for high-quality economic growth with great potential in the capital market. Shanghai Stock Exchange has signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the special area to establish a mechanism to jointly cultivate scientific and technological enterprises in Lingang.

Que also told the forum that as of December 6, China’s science and technology innovation board had accepted applications from 181 enterprises, out of which 102 had their applications approved.

Moreover, 61 companies had been listed, with a market value of about 720 billion yuan (US$102 billion) and an average price-to-earnings ratio of 64.5 times, Que said.