Shanghai will further coordinate investment promotion and business soliciting, introduce new investment promotion methods, complete related policies, and come up with one-stop services, according to the set of 15 new measures released on Jan 10.

The new measures were released by the city's leading group for investment promotion work, which was founded at the end of last year. Shanghai Mayor Gong Zheng serves as the group leader while Hua Yuan and Chen Jie, the city's vice-mayors, serve as the group's deputy heads.

On one hand, the city will step up the efforts in soliciting new businesses and investment in key areas, according to the new measures. By aligning with international high-level economic and trade standards and accelerating institutional opening-up, Shanghai aims to attract more market entities with stronger strength in allocating global resources and greater market influence.

More businesses should be introduced to facilitate the development of the three pioneering industries of integrated circuit, biomedicine, and artificial intelligence. Meanwhile, the emerging sectors of digital economy, green and low-carbon transition, metaverse, and smart devices should also look for more investment. Equal attention should also be given to the specific industries including high-tech shipbuilding, home-built passenger jet, low-altitude economy, and commercial aviation.

All these should contribute to the construction of a modern industrial system in Shanghai, according to the new measures.

Therefore, industrial chain investment maps should be compiled so that industry leaders can play a bigger role in helping to solicit more supporting companies and business partners within the same ecosystem. In this way, industrial clusters can be nurtured, and the business soliciting plans can be conducted more precisely.

The application scenarios for smart factories, autonomous driving, AI, 5G, big data, blockchain and metaverse should be further opened up in Shanghai. These attempts are likely to facilitate the settlement of large industrial projects and attract more innovation-driven companies to set up operations in the city, said the new measures.

While more industrial funds will be set up at both the municipal and district levels, a coordination mechanism should be set up to link these government-backed funds with the market-based funds.

Meanwhile, Shanghai will speed up the construction of a data market comprised of the fundamentals of computing, algorithm and corpus. In this way, companies requiring high computing competence, such as those specializing in the development of large language models, will be attracted to the city.

Shanghai will also step up its support for key projects landed in the city. It will provide favorable tax policies for high-tech companies, deducting their research and development expenses. Companies are encouraged to upgrade their technologies and equipment, seek digital and smart transformation, increase their registered capital, and provide professional training for employees, according to the new measures.