Shanghai mayor meets Russian, US and French guests separately

Shanghai Mayor Ying Yong met separately with Rustam Minnikhanov, president of Republic of Tatarstan; Bill Walker, governor of Alaska; and Olivier Brandicourt, CEO of Sanofi, a French pharmaceutical company, on Monday.

Ying told his guests that opening-up and reforms are China’s pivotal state policy, and Shanghai is the epitome of the country’s policies and its biggest strength is openness. There are more than 80,000 foreign-invested companies in the city and they are making great contribution to the city’s economic and social development.

The city is striving to build itself into an international economic, financial, trading, and shipping center, as well as a technology and innovation center by 2020. As the host city of the China International Import Expo in November, Shanghai welcomes Russia and the US companies to take part in the CIIE and to branch into China. Shanghai hopes to learn from Russia’s Kazan city’s experience in hosting the 45th World Skill Competition in 2019.

Shanghai is willing to strengthen the cooperation with Tatarstan and Russia in various industries under the framework of China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership, and the city will promote the cooperation with the US and Alaska as well, Ying added.

Minnikhanov said the Sino-Russia relations have laid a solid foundation for the two countries’ cooperation and Tartastan is willing to share its experience of hosting the 45th World Skill Competition and hopes to strengthen the cooperation in trade, education, and technologies with Shanghai.

Walker said China is Alaska’s biggest trading partner and Alaska hopes to keep deepening the trade cooperation with China and advance the exchange in cultural industries.

When meeting with Brandicourt, Ying said biomedicine industry has become a pillar emerging strategic industry of the city and Shanghai has aggregated a large number of biomedicine companies and research institutes, forming a rather complete industry chain that incorporates new drug development, medicine screening, clinical researches, pilot amplification test and registration.

In the meantime, Shanghai is enhancing the development of the grassroots medicine and health service system and introduction of general practitioners.

As one of the first batch of foreign companies to have settled in Shanghai, Sanofi has witnessed Shanghai’s opening-up and reforms and have made significant contribution to the city’s economic and social development. Shanghai welcomes Sanofi and other biomedicine companies to increase their investments and researches in Shanghai and to participate in the upcoming CIIE.

Brandicourt said Shanghai is a very enticing city and Sanofi hopes to participate more in Shanghai’s research programs and grassroots biomedicine programs and carry out cooperation with more research institutes.