Containers organised in stacks at the Shanghai Waigaoqiao Free Trade Zone in Shanghai on March 6, 2017. [Photo/VCG]

Waigaoqiao International Intelligent Manufacturing Industrial Park in China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone, has upgraded itself into a regional headquarters facility for multinationals – and one example is tenant, machine tools company GF Machining Solutions.

GF Machining Solutions, a wholly owned subsidiary of Swiss firm Georg Fischer Ltd, is the world's leading provider of precision machine tools using electrical discharge machining, milling and laser machining, with the precision reaching nanometer level.

It has achieved strong competitiveness in its key component products for airplane engines and generating units.

Now as regional headquarters in the Asia-Pacific area, GF Machining Solutions will serve as a management center for production and R&D, trade settlement, supply chain integration, talent training, capital planning and technology application. Its presence in the industrial park will help the parent company expand into the market in China, exerting a headquarters function, collecting and distributing global resources.

Since GF Machining Solutions moved to the Waigaoqiao industrial park six years ago, Shanghai Waigaoqiao Free Trade Zone Group Co -- which has made expanding into the headquarters economy a priority -- has striven to help the company promote its high-end equipment technology in the Chinese market.

It has also helped it extend its businesses such as product exhibitions and demonstrations, exhibit logistics, component distribution, technology communications and training.

The Waigaoqiao Free Trade Zone Group Co has said it will focus on key dominant industries and further attract global quality companies, while also fostering a number of regional headquarters for multinationals with wide influence needing a management function.

This is in a bid to enhance the headquarters economy of Waigaoqiao industrial park, facilitate its free trade zone industrial transformation, and build the park into an influential platform in the international intelligent manufacturing sector.