Awards indicate foreign confidence in city

Shanghai Mayor Gong Zheng on Thursday awarded certificates to a new batch of 30 regional headquarters and 10 research and development centers of multinational enterprises, an indication that the city remains a popular destination for foreign investment.

Most of the companies are involved in the key industries where Shanghai has a strong focus. Among them, four are in the biomedicine, four in the information technology, four in automobiles, four in intelligent manufacturing, and three in integrated circuits. Five are Global Fortune 500 enterprises.

Nine of the 40 regional headquarters and R&D centers are for China, the Asia Pacific region or bigger areas.

Shanghai authorities have always attached great importance to the development of foreign-funded enterprises, and have made greater efforts to open up and recover from the shutdown after the COVID-19 pandemic.

In order to better put into practice the new Foreign Investment Law, the city has taken the lead in introducing the first local regulations on foreign investment in China. 

The city's new regulations on encouraging the establishment and development of R&D centers of foreign enterprises will also be implemented in December, aiming to create a better policy environment for the centralized development of foreign-funded R&D centers.

Currently, there are 763 regional headquarters and 477 R&D centers of multinational enterprises in Shanghai.

From January to October this year, Shanghai's actual use of foreign capital topped US$17.18 billion, an increase of 6.2 percent year on year, indicating steady growth of the headquarters-based economy. 

In the next step, the city will further build a new high ground of opening up with more targeted and powerful policies and high-quality services.