A view of Shanghai Photo: VCG

Shanghai Party chief Chen Jining met with executives from foreign enterprises on Saturday in Shanghai, during which he said Shanghai will ramp up efforts to build a market-oriented, law-based and internationalized business environment, and accelerate the building of a supervision system that accommodates high-level opening up to support sustained development of multinationals in the city.

Chen met Jacob Wallenberg, chairman of Swedish investment and hold company Investor AB, Roland Busch, CEO of Siemens AG, Peter Robert Voser, chairman of ABB and executives of several other multinationals, Jiefang Daily reported on Sunday.

Chen welcomed their attendance at an upcoming forum in Shanghai and thanked international enterprises' contribution to the development of Shanghai. As a major economic hub and frontier of the country's reform and opening up, Shanghai is firmly committed to implementing high-level reform and opening up, boosting high-quality growth and striving to improve the residents' livelihood, he said.

He encouraged foreign enterprises to take advantage of the opportunities created by technology-led industrial upgrading, and increase investment in Shanghai in areas that they have advantages. 

Chen said the city is ready to join hands with the multinationals to nurture competitive and innovation enterprises in key sectors including high-end manufacturing, professional services and bio-medicine.

Maintaining the stability of policies and ramp up predictability of the development environment is important for both the growth of a city and the multinationals, Chen said. 

By relying on a series of platforms, the local government will strengthen regular communications with Shanghai-basecforeign enterprises and further promote reform and opening up, develop innovative policies and deepen cooperation with the multinationals, he said.

Business leaders arrived in Shanghai to attend the 35th International Business Leaders' Advisory Council for the Mayor of Shanghai that kicked off on Sunday. This is the first time that members of the council met offline after three-year online meetings because of the pandemic.

During the meeting with Chen, foreign executives expressed full confidence in  the development of China and Shanghai city too. They said they will continue to expand investment in Shanghai, and combine their own advantages with those of Shanghai to improve cooperation in key sectors and expand new cooperation to better support the city's development as an international financial, trade, shipping and tech innovation hub.