Shanghai Mayor Gong Zheng meets Daniel Houston, chairman, president, and CEO of Principal Financial Group on March 20. [Photo by Zhang Chunhai for International Services Shanghai]

Shanghai Mayor Gong Zheng met a delegation led by Daniel Houston, chairman, president, and CEO of Principal Financial Group, a global financial investment management company based in the United States, on March 20.

Gong highlighted Shanghai's current focus on establishing a global center for economy, finance, trade, shipping, and science and technology innovation, saying the city aims to deepen its high-level reform and opening-up, promote high-quality development, and continually bolster its capacity and core competitiveness.

With the financial industry standing as one of its core functions, Shanghai is committed to establishing itself as an international financial center, steadily expanding institutional openness within the financial sector, and enhancing the financial market, product, institutional, and infrastructure systems, Gong said.

Additionally, Shanghai will concentrate on developing areas such as science and technology finance, green finance, inclusive finance, pension finance, and digital finance to better serve the real economy, technological innovation, and the Belt and Road Initiative.

The mayor said Principal Financial Group is welcome to bring its strengths, functional platforms, business projects, and innovative resources to Shanghai, supporting the city's transformation into a global asset management center and actively participating in the development of Shanghai's pension finance.

Shanghai will continue to create a first-class business environment characterized by marketization, rule of law, and internationalization to promote the better development of all types of enterprises, he added.

Houston noted that this year marks the 30th anniversary of Principal Financial Group's operations in China and said he is pleased to see that Shanghai's development strategies align with many of the company's objectives.

Houston said that Principal Financial Group has felt strong confidence in Shanghai's growth and hopes to continuously expand its business scope and increase investment in Shanghai. The company will continue to leverage its global asset management advantages to support the construction of Shanghai's international financial center and contribute to Shanghai's urban digital transformation, working together to achieve mutually beneficial cooperation, he added.

Principal Financial Group entered China in 1994 and established Principal Private Management (Shanghai) Co Ltd in Shanghai in June.

Source: "shanghaifabu" WeChat account