Shanghai to host major business promotion event during CIIE

Shanghai will hold a meeting to introduce the city's business environment and investment policies to overseas investors, aiming to lure more foreign capital and attract enterprises to the city.

The meeting is scheduled during the second China International Import Expo, as an attempt to seek greater spillover effects from the CIIE.

Nearly a thousand people are estimated to attend the meeting, including key CIIE exhibitors, transnational corporations, state-owned enterprises located in Shanghai, private companies, platforms and agencies, representatives for domestic and foreign authorities, and the press.

Authorities will especially give detailed information on four important areas — the Pudong New Area, the Lingang Special Area of China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone, the Hongqiao Commercial Zone and Zhangjiang National Innovation Demonstration Zone.

The meeting will also highlight the business environment of all 16 districts of Shanghai, the core functions and competencies of the city, as well as major progress made by the headquarters of transnational enterprises in Shanghai, and the development of the city's "five centers" and "four brands."

"At the forefront of the reform and opening-up, Shanghai has always attached great importance to and unswervingly expanded the use of foreign capital," said Yang Chao, deputy director of the city's commission of commerce.

Since the beginning of this year, Shanghai has issued 30 measures on the headquarters of multinational companies, 40 measures on the opening up of the service sector, and 26 measures on the promotion of foreign investment. 

In the first three quarters, the city saw 5,192 new foreign capital projects, a sharp increase of 40.2 percent from a year earlier. The contract value of foreign investment, meanwhile, added up to US$36.6 billion and paid-in value reached US$14.6 billion, up by 8.9 percent and 13 percent respectively. 

By the end of September, the city had introduced 705 regional headquarters of multinational companies, including 109 Asia-Pacific headquarters and 452 research and development centers.

At the meeting, a service platform for promoting foreign investment in Shanghai will be launched, which will act as an important window for the promotion of the city. It will share data with major official platforms, such as the city's one-stop platform for government affairs and the service cloud for SMEs, to jointly support the integrated foreign invest promotion platform "Invest Shanghai."

The meeting is hosted by the Shanghai government, co-organized by eight major departments of the city: Commission of Commerce, Committee for Development and Reform, Commission of Economy and Informatization, Science and Technology Commission, Administration of Culture and Tourism, Financial Regulatory Bureau, State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, and the Information Office of the Shanghai government. In addition, the China International Import Expo Bureau will offer support for the meeting as well.

It will be held on November 6 at the International Convention Center in the Pudong New Area.