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| Part Three Shanghai’s Investment Environment for Enterprises with Foreign Investment |
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14. Shanghai’s Investment Environment for Enterprises with Foreign Investment
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14.2 Analysis
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14.2.2 Assessment of Shanghai's investment environment
(1) On Shanghai’s overall performance on the implementation of the WTO Accession commitments
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It has been almost five years since China’s accession to the World Trade Organization. Respondents showed positive attitude toward Shanghai’s overall performance on the implementation of the WTO accession commitments (See Chart 14-9). Up to two thirds respondents scored more than 80 (totally 100 marks), 17.8% scored “90 to 100”, 47.4% “89 to 89”, 22.1% “70 to 79” and 4.2% “60 to 69”. Only 2.8% marked below 60. That is to say, those scoring above 70 accounted for 87.3% of all respondents, which suggested that foreign-invested enterprises had been very much satisfied with Shanghai’s overall performance on the implementation of the WTO accession commitments.
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| (2) On Shanghai’s comprehensive investment environment for foreign-invested enterprises
Foreign investors’ attitude toward Shanghai’s comprehensive investment environment showed a positive sign (See Chart 14-10). More than seven-in-ten scored above 80 (totally 100 marks), with “100 to 90” 17.8% and “89 to 80” 52.6%. Together with the 19.2% selecting “79 to 70”, there were roughly nine-in-ten (89.7%) investors scoring more than 70 marks. Among the remaining 10% respondents, 6.6% marked “69 to 60”. Only 0.9% respondents marked “below 60”. The result indicated that the majority of the investors surveyed had been very much satisfied with Shanghai's comprehensive investment environment. |
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(3) On the most ideal investment destination
Shanghai has been deemed to be the most investor-friendly city in China by nearly 90% respondents (see Chart 14-11). In addition, 6.6% favored Suzhou and those preferred Shenzhen and Beijing accounted for 4.7% and 1.4% respectively. (As multiple selections are possible and most of those who selected Shenzhen and Beijing also selected Shanghai, the total may exceed 100%). Dalian and Chengdu were selected by a few respondents.
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(4) On key factors contributing to Shanghai’s international competitiveness
Approximately 70% respondents attributed Shanghai's international competitiveness in terms of investment environment to its sound urban infrastructure. 56.8% to its high caliber labor force, 46.5% to its relatively developed modern manufacturing, 45.1% to the “relatively efficient government” and 19.7% to the “convenient financing” (See Chart 14-12).
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(5) On their plans to establish regional headquarters in Shanghai
Up to the survey time, 37.1 % respondents had already established their regional headquarters in Shanghai. Moreover, 6.6% had got such plans under application or preparation and 27.7% under future consideration. This meant more than 70% of the respondents had established or planned to establish their headquarters in Shanghai. Among the remaining ones, 16.9% enterprises had not encountered the headquarter issue and only 7.5% said they didn't have such intention. 4.2% respondents skipped this question (See Chart 14-13).
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(6) On the expectation of the improvement of Shanghai’s investment environment.
On their expectation of Shanghai’s improvement of its investment environment, 13.6% respondents answered “very optimistic”, 55.4% “optimistic”, 25.8% “cautiously optimistic”, and the other 3.8% chose to “wait and see”. However, no respondent held a pessimistic view. Hereby, we draw the conclusion that close to 95% foreign investors surveyed had confidence in the improvement of Shanghai’s investment environment.
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(7) The impact of Shanghai’s priority given to the development of modern service industry on investment in Shanghai.
The impact of Shanghai’s priority given to the development of modern service industry on their investment activities in Shanghai were believed to be very positive by 12.7% respondents. Close to half of the respondents (49.3%) believed the impact should be “positive”, 1/3 “moderate” and those who believed “there is no change” or the impact would be “negative” took 2.8% and 0.5% respectively (See Chart 14-15).
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(8) On problems adversely affecting Shanghai’s international competitiveness
The biggest problem that would adversely affect Shanghai’s international competitiveness was believed to be its high business cost (by 54.5% respondents). In addition, 43.2% respondents chose “inadequate laws, decrees and regulations”. Those who complained about the lack of transparency made up 23.9%. Moreover, 10.3% showed their frustration on the performance of contracts.
Another 6.6 % cited other factors or just skipped this question.
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