New round of policies to enhance city's opening-up
Shanghai is stepping up efforts to promote higher-quality opening-up to upgrade the capabilities of the city's international trade center.
Over the past 10 years, the city has constantly worked on expanding domestic demand, while promoting the high-quality development of trade, according to Gu Jun, director of the Shanghai Commission of Commerce.
The city's total retail sales of social consumer products has doubled from ten years earlier, topping 1.8 trillion yuan (US$253 billion) in 2021, with the scale rocketing to the top among all cities in China.
Consumption now serves as the top driving force for Shanghai's economic growth, Gu said.
The city has also become the biggest hub of imported consumer goods in China. It is also the top choice for international brands to enter the Chinese market.
The city has a high concentration of world's famous high-end brands, at over 90 percent, ranking second among global cities in terms of concentration of international retailers.
It is noted that the city's annual Double Five Shopping Festival, since its inauguration in 2020, has strongly boosted consumption and unleashed the potential of domestic demand. It has become one of the major functional platforms and an iconic campaign of the city's development as an international consumption center.
E-commerce trade added up to 3.24 trillion yuan in 2021, more than four times that in 2012, among which online shopping contributed 1.32 trillion yuan, one of the highest among all cities in China.
Shanghai has kept enhancing functions of a trading hub over the past decade. With its global market share continues to increase, the city has risen to the world's largest trading port city.
In 2021, Shanghai's port trade volume reached 10.1 trillion yuan, with the global share of about 3.6 percent. The city's total imports and exports of goods exceeded 4 trillion yuan for the first time, while the foreign trade in services totaled US$229.41 billion, ranking first among all provinces and cities in China.
Consumers have a good time in Shanghai's Laowaijie, or Foreign Street, during the National Day holiday.
New forms and models of trade and business are also growing rapidly in the city. Shanghai took the lead in releasing the country's first provincial-level digital trade action plan, and saw digital trade transactions reaching US$56.88 billion in 2021, accounting for 24.8 percent of service trade imports and exports.
Meanwhile, the city's offshore trade revenue and expenditure exceeded US$70 billion last year, making it the most concentrated area for offshore trade in China.
On foreign investment, Shanghai has become the city with the highest concentration of regional headquarters of multinational companies on the Chinese mainland, with a total number of 877.
And by the end of 2021, the cumulative actual use of foreign investment in the city exceeded US$300 billion, up US$168 billion from 2012, while the cumulative amount of recorded outbound investment was US$170 billion in the 10-year period.
A new round of policies on regional headquarters of multinational companies in Shanghai will soon be released and implemented, Zhang Guohua, deputy director of the city's commerce commission, revealed.
This will be the fifth revision since the introduction of the headquarters policies in 2002, which will mainly focus on innovations in the definition and criteria of headquarters enterprises, while responding to the demands of enterprises in terms of supportive measures.
The policies are also to further promote the specialization and facilitation of investment and capital operation, to carry out more convenient and efficient customs clearance policies, and to optimize measures on the introduction of headquarters talents and the services for them, Zhang said.
