Global business leaders gathered for the 2026 Shanghai Global Investment Promotion Conference this week, aligning their strategies with China's next development blueprint. The summit highlights Shanghai's role as a strategic engine, driving investment not just into the city, but across the Yangtze River Delta and the nation.

With its 15th Five-Year Plan officially here, China is inviting global entrepreneurs and investors to cooperate, share opportunities and prosper together.

As China's top economic hub, Shanghai is focusing on creating a world-class environment for business, innovation, and consumption. The city is set to enhance its global influence as a hub for finance, trade, shipping, and scientific innovation.

To bring this vision to life, new quality productive forces nurtured by advancing manufacturing, energizing the service sector, and promoting industrial integration are in need.

Martin Fischer, president and CEO of Zeiss China, said: "What gives us confidence is the strong strategic planning in China. With the upcoming 15th Five-Year Plan, we see a lot of elements which resonate very well with our own strategy. Shanghai's industrial policies are also very favorable for us — AI is mentioned, bio-medicine is mentioned, semiconductors — that's all we do. But maybe even more important is that we can learn from the innovativeness in China and participate as a global company."

Michael Shiuan, chairman and CEO of Lisuan Tech, said: "Our product is GPU. GPUs need a lot of high-speed computing that can do a lot of work from professional design, to gaming, and AI inference, that can apply to everyone. In China, there's a huge market here and a lot of great engineers. So, we started our design here, and we're going to create a business here. This product is completely designed in China."

Sunny Sun, senior vice president of AutoFlight, said: "Our cargo eVTOL aircraft has already obtained full certification from the Civil Aviation Administration of China. In addition, we have conducted demonstration flights for multiple commercial use cases, including logistics operations. To ensure the highest level of safety and reliability, we continue to carry out extensive safety testing across diverse environments in China."

Joris van Leeuwen, chief revenue officer of Lucanet, said: "If you are acting international, you should also be very active in China, and we started investing more than 10 years ago. We see Shanghai is a very big financial hub. From here on, we're gonna expand further into mainland China. We have a very positive image about China for the next few years."

In 2025, 1.26 trillion yuan was invested in major projects in Shanghai, with more than half involving the industrial, software, and information services sectors. Official figures suggest that investing in China is investing in the future.