The city’s district-level authorities have been encouraged to offer a one-time cash award<\/strong> to new foreign direct investment (FDI) projects <\/strong>and also to foreign investors<\/strong> who reinvest their profits in the city, vice-mayor Hua Yuan said at a press conference on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “We aim to attract fresh fund inflows, stabilise existing FDI projects and improve the quality of foreign-invested businesses,” he said, adding that the new incentives were a conscious effort to “actively cope with a complicated geopolitical situation”. While Hua did not provide details, a local government official, who declined to be identified, said the incentives would include a one-time cash distribution, a cash subsidy for companies’ office rent and a tax rebate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hua also said visa and residency permit<\/strong> procedures would be eased to attract more foreign professionals and their family members to the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The measures came after Shanghai reported a drop in the number of foreign-invested businesses during the first two months of the year. A total of 641 FDI projects were approved in January and February, 22.4 per cent lower than a year earlier, according to data from the city’s statistics bureau.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cShanghai is sending a loud message to global investors that the city is back and will continue to act as a gateway for them to enter the mainland,\u201d said Wang Feng, chairman of financial services group Ye Lang Capital in Shanghai. \u201cThe new FDI policies<\/strong> may not be enough to convince foreign investors, but they can help restore multinational companies’ confidence in the city and the country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Analysts also indicated that while rising tensions between Beijing and Washington are still spooking foreign investors, they are still drawn to China because of its\u00a0market potential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Shanghai has long been recognised as the \u201cdragon head<\/strong>\u201d of China’s economy, which is highly dependent on multinational businesses for jobs and taxes. Foreign businesses account for 25 per cent <\/strong>of the city’s gross domestic product (GDP), and their taxes represent a third of Shanghai’s total. Also, foreign firms account for one in every five jobs in the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The city of 25 million <\/strong>has set a post-Covid-19 GDP growth target of 5.5 per cent for 2023, 0.5 percentage point higher than the national goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The European Union Chamber of Commerce in China said in February that Shanghai must offer a predictable business environment <\/strong>while taking action to ease small companies’ financial burdens to regain foreign investors’ confidence in the local economy.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Shanghai launched two comprehensive sets of 41 policies and measures to boost international trade and investment. The city’s district-level authorities have been encouraged to offer a one-time cash award to new foreign direct investment (FDI) projects and also to foreign investors who reinvest...<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6090,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.elitestage.cn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Shanghai2.jpg\")
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