Visitors to the Bund in Shanghai in April pose for a photograph, with the Pudong financial district in the background. WANG GANG/FOR CHINA DAILY

The 2024 Shanghai Global Investment Promotion Conference has once again boosted the confidence of overseas and domestic enterprises who plan to invest in Shanghai. As many as 21 new projects involving an investment of 52.4 billion yuan ($7.24 billion), covering key industries such as biomedicine, new energy, general aviation and semiconductors, were introduced to Shanghai through the collective signing ceremony during the conference on Friday.

Actually, Shanghai signed 42 key projects with a total investment of 343.5 billion yuan in the first quarter alone, continuing the momentum of investment growth from last year. As some observers said, enterprises that choose Shanghai for their development get access to an international market, global resources, open policies and better development opportunities. More important, Shanghai has not only seen increased foreign investment, but also an accelerated transfer of foreign investment to the high-end links of the industry chain, which will further enhance the confidence and motivation of foreign enterprises in China.

Shanghai launched a global investment partnership program a few years ago, inviting a number of renowned global enterprises and business institutions to participate, as part of its efforts to strengthen global resource allocation, innovate investment promotion methods, and broaden investment channels. Foreign institutions have joined and helped Shanghai attract dozens of major industrial projects.

In recent years, Shanghai has innovatively put forward the "whole-industry-chain investment attraction" plan, in order to build more competitive leading industries from which it can build new industrial advantages and cultivate new growth drivers.

Therefore, a major feature of the just-concluded conference is to closely focus on the high-tech, efficient and high-quality connotations of new quality productive forces, take innovation as the first driving force, refine Shanghai's industry chains and subdivision of investment tracks, and send Shanghai's investment invitation to the world.

To this end, the conference released a policy package for "investment in Shanghai" in 2024, including reducing costs by 100 billion yuan for enterprises, increasing an investment and financing credit of 2 trillion yuan, adding intelligent space of 10 million square meters, and setting up an industrial investment fund of 100 billion yuan. In addition, Shanghai will continue to improve its "service package", rolling out a series of reform measures to optimize its business environment.

As a frontier of China's reform and opening-up and an international metropolis with deep links to the world, Shanghai is an important window for the world to observe China. The greater efforts Shanghai is making are bound to make it a preferred place for global investment and development.