FTZ designed to attract global HQs

An upgraded version of the Chinese economy will be created on a larger scale and to a higher standard to configure global resources in terms of having more headquarters of global enterprises in the trial project of the Shanghai Free Trade Zone, according to a newly issued economics "blue book" on Thursday, reported Jiefang Daily.

The blue book was about the development of foreign companies setting up their headquarters in Pudong New Area aiming to attract more overseas enterprises to launch their regional offices along with the launch of the FTZ.

The official statistics showed there were 202 regional headquarters of foreign enterprises in Pudong, accounting for 48 percent of the total number in the city up to the end of June 2013.

The blue book said currently 60 Chinese enterprises with headquarters in the area are qualified to operate branches in the Asia-Pacific region while nearly 10 of them have already expanded their businesses worldwide.

In the past decade, the area government has released a series of measures to persuade foreign enterprises to open regional headquarters offices in Pudong with assistance in terms of human resources, business environment, branding and other advantages.

As its next step, the area government will promote the construction of the FTZ by providing more convenient policies regarding trading, higher efficacy in monitoring and a more regulated legal environment to global standards to attract more foreign investors.