Shanghai to scrap all foreign investment limits on manufacturing

Mainland China’s commercial and financial hub Shanghai has pledged to remove all regulatory hurdles for foreign investors to set up manufacturing businesses, as authorities move to shore up confidence in the local and national economies despite rising US-China trade tensions.

Mayor Gong Zheng said on Sunday that deepened reforms had been carried out to grant overseas companies in the fields of electric vehicles, value-added telecommunications services, biotechnology and hospitals full access to the Chinese market.

“We are taking an orderly pace in further implementing institutional reforms in opening up the market,” he said at a press conference after the annual International Business Leaders’ Advisory Council meeting. “We understand that openness is the biggest advantage that Shanghai enjoys.”

The mayor did not directly respond to a question about the impact from escalating US-China trade tensions following US President Donald Trump’s latest threat of additional 100 per cent tariffs on Chinese goods over the weekend.

Admitting that foreign direct investment in the mainland’s most developed metropolis dropped recently, Gong said that multinational firms had opened more research and development centres, as well as regional headquarters, in Shanghai as they remained confident in China’s consumer vigour.

He also said that Shanghai municipality would ensure that foreign-funded manufacturers would be treated equally in government purchases.

“They will also receive our support when they participate in building supply chains, whether upstream or downstream,” he added.

South China Morning Post