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Press release for Party Committee special-series press conference (Oct 9, 2022)

2022.10.10

On the afternoon of October 9,the External Communications Office of the CPC Shanghai Municipal Committee held the seventh media briefing of the Party Committee special-series press conferences on the theme “forging ahead in a new journey and make contributions in a new era.” Gu Jun, Party Secretary of the Leading Party Member’s Group and Director of the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce, gave a briefing on the developments of Shanghai International Trade Center since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, focusing on the theme of “promoting higher-level opening-up to the outside world and enhancing the energy capacity of Shanghai International Trade Center.” Zhang Guohua, member of the Leading Party Member’s Group and Deputy Director of the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce, Zhang Yi, member of the Party Committee and Deputy Director of Shanghai Customs, Yang Chao, member of the Standing Committee of the CPC Pudong New Area Committee and deputy head of the Pudong New Area, Zhao Yihuai, member of the Party Working Committee and full-time Deputy Director of the Lingang New Area Administration, Kong Fuan, member of the Leading Party Member’s Group and Deputy Director of the Hongqiao International Central Business District Administration, attended the press conference and answered questions from reporters.

In the past decade, Shanghai has adhered to the strategy of expanding domestic demand while improving consumption quality and increasing consumption volume. The total retail sales of consumer goods have doubled, with its scale ranked first nationwide. Consumption has become the top driving force for Shanghai’s economic growth. First, the international consumption center city has started a new journey. In 2017, Shanghai proposed to launch the “Four Brands.” The city has successively issued two rounds of three-year action plans to launch “Shanghai Shopping” brand, and took the lead in proposing to build an international consumption city. In July 2021, the State Council approved five cities including Shanghai to take the lead in cultivating and building international consumption centers. In 2021, the total retail sales of consumer goods exceeded 1.8 trillion yuan, and the contribution of consumption to the city’s economic growth exceeded 60%. Second, the city has bolstered its role to lead fashion trends, and has become the largest distribution center for imported consumer goods in China. The proportion of total imports of consumer goods via Shanghai ports has increased to more than 40% of the national total, and the imports of clothing, cosmetics and automobiles via Shanghai ports accounted for about 70%, 41% and 37% of the country’s total, respectively. Shanghai is also the first choice for international brands to enter the Chinese market. The concentration of world-renowned high-end brands exceeds 90%, and the concentration of international retailers ranks second in the world. During the 13th Five-Year Plan period, more than 800 “first” stores were introduced each year, accounting for about half of the country’s total. In 2021, the number of newly established first stores exceeded 1,000 for the first time, and more than 3,000 international and domestic brands held new product launches, debuts and first exhibitions in Shanghai. Shanghai is also the birthplace of local brands. The city is home to 3,000 brand stores of 222 time-honored brands, including 69 century-old brands, and 20 brands that have annual sales of more than 1 billion yuan each. Among Tmall’s top 500 new brands in 2020, 90 new brands were from Shanghai, with the number ranking first among cities in the country. Shanghai Fashion Week has ushered in its 20th anniversary, and has cultivated more than 1,000 domestic hot-selling brands, with orders exceeding 600 million yuan in a single season, ranking fourth in the global fashion week vitality index, and known as “Asia’s largest ordering season.” It is worth mentioning that May 5th Shopping Festival, which was initiated in 2020 as the first large-scale comprehensive consumption festival, has been successfully held for three times, effectively promoting consumption replenishment and potential release, and becoming a key functional platform and a major landmark event for Shanghai to accelerate the construction of an international consumption city and advance the ‘Four Brands.” Third, new models and new formats have emerged. In 2021, the city’s e-commerce transaction value was 3.24 trillion yuan, four times that of 2012. Among them, the online shopping transaction value was 1.32 trillion yuan, ranking among the leading pack in the country. New models such as unmanned retail, fresh food cold chain, online audio-visual, and contactless distribution have emerged one after another. On the major livestreaming e-commerce platforms, the city was ranked first nationwide in terms of both the number of user views and the scale of brand participation.

In the past decade, Shanghai has adhered to giving play to the decisive role of the market in resources allocation, promoting smooth flow of commodity factors and resources on a larger scale, significantly increasing the number of commodity transaction platforms with sales of more than 10 billion or 100 billion yuan, and making important breakthroughs in the construction of a modern commerce and trade circulation system. In 2021, Shanghai’s total commodity sales jumped to 16.3 trillion yuan, 2.3 times that of 2012. First, the influence and spill-over effect from the platform economy continued to increase. The numbers of commodity transaction platforms with sales of more than 10 billion and 100 billion yuan rose to 9 and 17 respectively. The Shanghai Diamond Exchange has become the fifth largest diamond trading center in the world, and the city’s gem and jade trading center has been upgraded to a national platform. The city took the lead in the country to carry out the pilot project of interaction between futures and spot markets and achieved positive results. The prices of commodities such as steel, non-ferrous metals and iron ore have become “an important vane” in the international market. Second, the reform of the commercial and trade circulation system continued to deepen. The city has wrapped up the comprehensive pilot project on the reform and development of the national domestic trade circulation system, supply chain innovation and application pilot project and other tasks, with eight items of “Shanghai experiences” replicated across the country, including the new circulation governance model with business credit as the core. The city took the lead in promoting the construction of regional market integration, and carried out a number of joint construction projects such as the exchange of traceability information for important products in the Yangtze River Delta, and the standardized pallet recycling system in the Yangtze River Delta. Third, the city’s commercial and trade circulation network system has been continuously improved, and the urban commercial layout system has been more established. The city is home to more than 300 commercial complexes with a size of more than 30,000 square meters each, and the annual passenger flow exceeds 2.1 billion. The east extension of the Nanjing Road Pedestrian Street has been completed. Binjiang area, Xintiandi and Wukang Road have become famous check-in spots, and the city was ranked first on the nightlife index in the country. Five districts have been selected as pilot areas for a nationwide initiative to build 15-minute community circles, and the city’s community life quality has been continually improved. The urban circulation service system has been more convenient and modern. The city is home to 19 wholesale markets and 875 wet markets, ensuring sufficient supply of staple and non-staple foods with stable prices, and bringing convenience and benefits to the people. Since the start of a new round of breakfast project in 2020, a total of 3,397 new breakfast outlets and 328 municipal-level breakfast demonstration points have been added, forming a beautiful landscape that reflects the city’s character and vibe.

In the past decade, Shanghai has adhered to promoting high-quality development of trade, continuously enhancing the trade hub function, improving its global market share, and leaping to become the world’s largest trade port city. In 2021, trade value via Shanghai ports reached 10.1 trillion yuan, with its proportion of the world’s total rising to about 3.6%. The total imports and exports of goods in Shanghai exceeded 4 trillion yuan for the first time. The imports and exports of services reached US$229.41 billion, accounting for 30% of the country’s total and ranking first among all provinces and cities in the country. First, the city’s trade structure has been greatly optimized. In 2021, the proportion of general trade approaches, emerging markets and private enterprises in overall exports rose by about 10, 8 and 13 percentage points respectively compared with 2012. The scale of imports and exports of knowledge-intensive services increased by 1.87 times compared with 2012, accounting for 41.2% of total imports and exports of services. The value of offshore service outsourcing contracts has grown at an average annual rate of 13% in the past five years. Second, the city’s capacity to generate spill-over effect by trade carriers has been significantly enhanced, and the set-up of the national platform base has accelerated momentum. Several national foreign trade transformation and upgrading bases have undergone accelerated construction. The imports of six types of commodities in the Waigaoqiao National Import Trade Promotion and Innovation Demonstration Zone accounted for over 10% of the country’s total. The city has successfully created eight national-level characteristic service export bases in the fields of digital services and cultural trade. The international convention and exhibition capital has been basically set up. The city has released the country’s first provincial-level convention and exhibition industry regulations, and the city’s total exhibition areas have been expanded from 11.093 million square meters in 2012 to 19.417 million square meters in 2019. A number of high-end exhibitions represented by China International Import Expo and China International Industrial Fair were held continuously, and the world-renowned convention and exhibition institutions such as Union des Foires Internationales (UFI) have settled down. The city has the largest number of the world’s top 100 trade shows. Third, new trade modes and formats have grown rapidly. The city took the lead in releasing the country’s first provincial-level digital trade action plan, and the digital trade transaction value reached US$56.88 billion in 2021, accounting for 24.8% of the imports and exports of services. The city took an innovative approach to carry out the pilot of offshore economic and trade business under the free trade account, and the offshore trade balance of Shanghai enterprises exceeded US$70 billion in 2021, making the city a place with the most concentrated offshore trade in China. The city has built a national-level cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zone and achieved full coverage of the main regulatory models for cross-border e-commerce. In 2021, the city’s cross-border e-commerce imports and exports were valued at 132.88 billion yuan, an increase of 1.2 times year on year. The city has successfully launched the China-Europe express train, and achieved new breakthroughs in international trade distribution, bonded maintenance, remanufacturing and other new international trade models.

In the past decade, Shanghai has adhered to the principle of attaching equal importance to “bringing in” and “going out”, and achieved leapfrog development through two-way investment cooperation. It has become the city with the most concentrated regional headquarters of multinational companies in China’s mainland. By the end of 2021, the city’s realized foreign investment exceeded US$300 billion, an increase of US$168 billion over 2012. In the past decade, the total value of Chinese investment in the filing of foreign investment has exceeded US$170 billion. First, the city has consolidated its role as a preferred place for foreign investors. More than 60,000 foreign-funded enterprises have flourished in Shanghai, and a number of innovative projects such as the country’s first joint-stock foreign investment company, the wholly foreign-owned shipping agency, and the foreign-funded insurance holding company have been launched. By the end of September this year, a total of 877 regional headquarters and 523 R&D centers of multinational companies had been certified in the city. Shanghai has promulgated the country’s first local foreign investment regulations, and precise service mechanisms such as the complaint center of foreign-funded enterprises and the foreign-related service window allowed foreign investors to dare to invest in Shanghai with bigger and stronger business. Second, the city has been playing a prominent role as the bridgehead of the Belt and Road initiative. By the end of 2021, Shanghai enterprises have set up more than 5,000 units overseas, and 110 Shanghai enterprises had outstanding overseas investment of more than US$100 million each. Among them, cooperation with countries and regions along the Belt and Road has continued to be enhanced, as the proportion of foreign investment, imports and exports and newly signed contracting projects in the markets along the Belt and Road increased to 11.4%, 22.4% and 61% of the city’s total, respectively. Projects such as China-Indonesia Tsingshan Industrial Park (Shanghai) and the new port of Haifa in Israel have become successful models of win-win international economic and trade cooperation.

In the past decade, Shanghai has adhered to expanding opening-up unswervingly, with the implementation of major national strategic tasks as the starting point to form a large number of pioneering reform, opening-up and innovation achievements, making the city an all-round highland of high-level opening up. First, the city has built an open platform that has attracted worldwide attention. Pudong New Area has kicked off a new round of development and opening up. From the inauguration of the country’s first pilot free trade zone in 2013, to the establishment of Lingang New Area in 2019, to the creation of a leading area for socialist modernization construction in 2021, Pudong has continued to advance development and opening up. The city has formulated the country’s first negative list of foreign investment access in the pilot free trade zone. And Yangshan Special Comprehensive Bonded Area, the first and only special comprehensive bonded area in the country, has passed the acceptance. A number of major policy measures such as bonded oil and bonded liquefied natural gas refueling for international voyages have been implemented. Hongqiao International Central Business District has built a new platform for international trade. Up to now, the city has cultivated and introduced nearly 500 headquarters enterprises, and the Hongqiao Import Trade Promotion and Innovation Demonstration Zone has been successfully created. The Hongqiao International Convention and Exhibition Industrial Park has been inaugurated. The business, conference and exhibition and functions have been deeply integrated and comprehensively improved. The city has successfully held the China International Import Expo for four consecutive years. The CIIE is the world’s first import-themed state-level exhibition personally planned, proposed, deployed and promoted by General Secretary Xi Jinping. The total intended transaction value reached more than US$270 billion. The number of “6 + 365 days” trading service platforms has been expanded to 60, with a total of more than 323 billion yuan in imported goods. The Shanghai City Promotion Convention was held for three consecutive years to fully demonstrate Shanghai’s confidence and determination to open up to the outside world. Second, the city has created a world-class environment for opening-up. At present, the construction of a single window for international trade has entered version 4.0, which supports the data processing of nearly one-third of the country’s trade volume and 40 million TEUs of container throughput every year. It has become the largest local single window in the world. The Asia-Pacific demonstration e-port project has been successfully launched, and the membership has been expanded to 24 ports in 14 economies, becoming a powerful driver for the integration of the APEC supply chain. The level of trade facilitation has continued to be improved. The time needed for customs clearance at Shanghai ports in 2021 has been reduced by more than half compared with 2017, and the city has been ranked first in individual indicators in cross-border trade business environment indicators nationwide for two consecutive years, and ranked among the leading pack in the global maritime economies.