Investment routes for foreign companies

Shanghai launched a map for investing in the city at a promotion and matchmaking conference for the second China International Import Expo on Thursday in a push to further attract and better support foreign companies.

Fifty featured routes were released and introduced in nine aspects — financial services, commerce and trade, sci-tech innovation, smart manufacturing, data information, life science, culture and creative industry, fashion and leisure, and cultural Shanghai — "aiming to meet the demand of enterprises in various sectors, giving more information for those who are seeking opportunities and proper destinations to invest," according to Zong yuyan, vice president of the Shanghai Foreign Investment Development Board, also known as Invest Shanghai.

"The 50 visit routes are well designed and cover a wide range of sectors and themes," said Kiran Patel, senior director of business development at the China-Britain Business Council.

"The UK has a strong offer across a multitude of sectors and the CBBC has particular interest in routes and activities related to financial services, consumer, advanced manufacturing, health care and the creative industries. We will proactively inform our members of opportunities within these routes and encourage them to engage," Patel said.

In addition, 56 investment promotion activities will be held to support the CIIE before and during the event, according to Zong, with participants from various countries or regions, including the UK, Italy, France, Germany, Norway and South Africa, focusing on areas of global comparative advantage, such as cross-border e-commerce, big data, industrial Internet, new energy vehicles, artificial intelligence, and biomedicine.

"Thanks to Invest Shanghai, we met other entities and agencies that so far have had very close cooperation with both our consulate and the Italy Chamber of Commerce in China," said Ludovica Murazzani, commercial consul of the Consulate General of Italy in Shanghai. "All of these really provided great help to Italian companies and our consulate." 

Since the first policy on attracting multinational companies to set up regional headquarters was introduced in 2002, the headquarters economy in Shanghai has made great progress over the past 18 years, according to authorities.

From January to August 2019, Shanghai had set up 4,661 new foreign investment projects, an increase of 47.8 percent year on year. The contracted foreign investment totaled US$32.46 billion, up 9.6 percent from a year earlier, while actual foreign investment grew 13.4 percent to add up to US$13.108 billion. 

Currently there are more than 700 regional headquarters of multinational companies in Shanghai, making it the city to have attracted the most regional headquarters and foreign research and development centers in the Chinese mainland.