Shanghai pledges to further improve its business environment for foreign investment as part of the city's efforts to open up wider. [Photo by Wang Jianhua/Xinhua]

Shanghai will take measures to create the best business environment for foreign entrepreneurs, according to a briefing on commerce and investment organized by the Municipal Commission of Commerce on March 5.

The city will persist in developing a high-level open economy to encourage foreign investment since opening-up was conducive to previous progress and will be again to future development, said Shang Yuying, director of the commission.

At the same time, Shanghai welcomes global companies to expand their activities in the city and pledges to be supportive of greater achievements by multi-national enterprises.

The city has made breakthroughs in innovative reform to optimize its business environment.

For example, administrative procedures for startups were simplified to allow easier access for foreign entrepreneurs, after which investment in research and development rose to account for four percent of Shanghai’s gross production value.

In January, Shanghai saw significant growth in new foreign-funded projects and contractual foreign investment, showing its competiveness as a research, production and sales base for global entrepreneurs.

To open doors wider in 2019, Shanghai plans to build a new economic area with international impact to expand the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone, trying to implement more convenient measures for trade and investment.

In addition, a new sci-tech board with a pilot registration system will be set up in the Shanghai Stock Exchange, showing the city's determination to continue pushing forward financial reforms and enhance the capital market's capability to serve the high-tech enterprises and real economy.