Ｈｅａｄｑｕａｒｔｅｒｅｄ ｉｎ Ｓｈａｎｇｈａｉ，Ｇｏｏｄ Ａｗａｒｄ ｔｏ Ｇｅｔ

The Shanghai Municipal Government is working to get multinationals to set up their regional headquarters in Shanghai. Its a great city, they should come!

A Shanghainese official said in the middle of December that the Shanghai Municipal Government would issue a series of policies in the very near future, basically to attract the multinationals to set up their regional headquarters in Shanghai. For those multinationals which set up the investment companies and state-class headquarters in Shanghai, the government will give them financial aid of 5 million yuan (USD 714.3 thousand) and award of 10 million yuan (USD 1.43 million).

According to the report from Oriental Morning Post, since the year of 2008 the Shanghais government has been working hard to improve its investment environment to attract more multinationals to headquarter in Shanghai since the second half of 2008. At that time several problems dogged these companies, like the fact that the demand for high-class office buildings, especially A-class office buildings, The Shanghai Municipal Government is working particularly hard on the policies in planning, land and capital to promote the construction of some high-class office buildings in many key areas.

On July 7, 2008, the Shanghai Municipal Government officially published the modified Stipulations Made by the Shanghai Municipal Government on Encouraging the Multinationals to Set up Regional Headquarters in Shanghai (hereafter Stipulations). The Stipulations included the government aid and award, administration on exit and entry, human resources, capital and convenience of imported and exported goods in customs clearance.

In less than half a year after the issuance of the Stipulations, 20 foreign companies applied to set up their headquarters in Shanghai and the government approved those applications.

According to the statistics, at time of writing 223 multinationals have set up their regional headquarters in Shanghai, and the number of investment companies has reached 178. Due to its concerted efforts, Shanghai is now one of Chinas most popular multinational corporation destinations.

According to the data from the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce, from January to November 2008, the level of both promised foreign capital and actual/tangible foreign capital going into Shanghai hit historical and hysterical highs. The contract foreign capital was 15.838 billion US dollars, and the actually-obtained capital was 9.3 billion US dollars, increasing respectively by 18.3% and 25%.