(Photo/Shanghai Daily)
Shanghai manufacturers welcome foreign investment to help them bolster industrial upgrading, Ernst & Young said during the China International Industry Fair yesterday.
In the first half of the year, foreign funds totaling $1.9 billion were signed with the city's manufacturing industry--the same amount as in the whole of last year, the U.S.-based accounting firm said.
To encourage investment, the city government approved four manufacturing projects with total investment of 41.3 billion yuan ($6.1 billion), including a deal worth U.S.$30 million with U.S.- health care company Johnson & Johnson to produce oral care products.
"That was in line with the city's plan to upgrade manufacturing, which would account for 25 percent of the economy by 2020," said Chen Mingbo, director of the Shanghai Commission of Economy and Information Technology.
Last year, foreign investments mainly flowed into advanced production, such as 3D printing, cloud computing, new-energy vehicles, clean energy and industrial robots, which "echoes the demand for industrial upgrading," Chen said.
Foreign investment in manufacturing in Shanghai has been below 10 percent of the total since 2013.
