Pudong highlights outstanding performance

The Pudong New Area honored 17 regional headquarters on Wednesday for their outstanding performance in leading industry development, embracing technological innovation and making great economic contributions.

They include luxury company Richemont, global pharma company Eli Lilly and global chemicals giant Celanese.

Over the years, Pudong has witnessed an increasing trend for multinational companies to upgrade their local offices to Asia Pacific headquarters.

Currently, 129 Global Fortune 500 companies have regional headquarters in Pudong and 320 have invested in more than 1,200 projects in the area, according to the Pudong Commerce Commission.

US-based Celanese has placed the largest technology and innovation center in Asia in Pudong. Sinochem International, a state-owned listed corporation of global prominence, has established an international innovation center in Pudong’s Zhangjiang area.

Sinochem has developed from a single office dealing with trade to a large group covering business from fine chemicals to agrochemicals. The company’s business network has expanded to over 100 countries and regions.

“The headquarters economy is a strategic development plan for Pudong,” said Yang Chao, Pudong’s vice director. “Pudong features diversified headquarters, including regional headquarters, divisional headquarters and business headquarters, becoming a major economic landmark in the city’s development to become an outstanding global city.’

Pudong is home to more than 600 regional headquarters.

In the first half of the year, Pudong fetched actual foreign investment worth more than US$5.5 billion, a year-on-year increase of 7 percent despite the pandemic. It accounted for 46 percent of the city’s total.