Shanghai Free Trade Zone Administration director Shen Xiaoming chaired a seminar recently to seek ideas and suggestions from foreign chambers of commerce and foreign enterprises regarding the development of the FTZ.

Representatives from the American Chamber of Commerce, EU Chamber of Commerce, Japanese Chamber of Commerce, ACC Lab, Boehringer-Ingelheim China, V.Ships Shanghai, and a dozen other foreign companies spoke out at the seminar.

Officials from the People’s Bank of China Shanghai Office, Shanghai Customs, Shanghai Development and Reform Commission, Shanghai Port Authority, Pudong Commerce Commission, Pudong Financial Bureau and other government agencies communicated with foreign representatives.

Shen said foreign companies account for 56 percent of output value, 67 percent of foreign trade and 58 percent of tax revenue of Pudong New Area. Their advanced technologies, management and standards are conducive to the development of Shanghai Free Trade Zone.

Pudong will create first-class business environment for companies and continue reforms and opening up to make the FTZ the primary destination for foreign investment, he said.

By the end of April, the FTZ had registered 35,000 companies, including 5,500-plus foreign companies with an average registered capital of US$15 million, twice that of domestic companies.

Pudong has more than 10,000 financial institutions which contributed 30 percent of its GDP and half of the city’s added value from the financial sector.

Pudong’s foreign trade continued to grow despite global economic slowdown. Yangshan Port and Waigaoqiao Port, both in Pudong, registered a 3.7 percent increase in container throughput, keeping Shanghai’s place as the world’s largest port.

The FTZ has only one tenth of Pudong’s land but yields three fourths of its GDP. It helped Pudong to achieve a 9.1 percent GDP growth in 2015, 2.2 percentage points higher than the city’s average.

Source: Shanghai FTZ Government.cn