City remains magnet for foreign investment

Stores launched

The trend of products making their regional or global debuts at CIIE extends beyond the expo, with Shanghai increasingly favored by brands from home and abroad for store or product launches.

The Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce said 375 new stores opened in the city in the first four months of this year.

Liu Min, deputy director of the commission, said: "These store launches help address supply-side reform at the consumption end. Domestic and international brands can also explore more opportunities to seek product innovation by making various debuts here."

Meanwhile, the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone, which was officially launched in 2013 and underwent expansion in 2015 and 2019, serves as one of the best examples of systematic innovation.

The negative list for foreign investment, first adopted by the Shanghai FTZ when it was launched, was promoted nationwide in July 2017. In early March, the Ministry of Commerce said efforts are being made to trim the national negative list to further relax the limit on foreign capital in certain areas.

The free trade account, first introduced at the Shanghai FTZ in June 2014, has brought increased convenience to companies' cross-border financial businesses — nurturing new business models.

In February last year, textile exporter Orient International Enterprise launched Shanghai's first offshore processing trade business, in which purchased raw materials are directly shipped to the company's overseas production base and delivered to overseas end users when production is completed. This process saves the cost of exporting the completed products from domestic facilities.