Pudong to develop into global resource allocation center

Pudong's rising profile has also made it the location of a number of high-level conferences. The Baltic and International Maritime Council (BIMCO), the world's largest international shipping association, held its 2019 conference in Pudong this February for the second time, during which it announced that it will be setting up the SmartCon Asia Development and Support Center.

SmartCon is a digital ecosystem, co-developed by BIMCO and Microsoft, which integrates various standard shipping contracts recognized by BIMCO and has been widely used by over 3,000 shipping-related enterprises in 109 countries and regions worldwide.

BIMCO opened its Shanghai Center office in Pudong in 2013, which has already developed into a regional center in Asia.

The New Development Bank (NDB), also known as BRICS Development Bank, established in Pudong in 2015, has lent its support to projects all over the world. It has aided in urban development and environmental protection in Brazil, helped develop ancient towns in Russia, constructed rural roads in India, and built transportation infrastructure in South Africa.

The bank, the first international financial organization to set up operations in Shanghai, has approved loans of about $8 billion over the past three years, and plans to approve an additional 7 to 8 billion dollars this year.

The International Network of Financial Centers for Sustainability (FC4S) set up its Asia-Pacific Center in Pudong last October. The network will bring together global financial centers to discuss the development of green finance in Pudong.

Its members include financial powerhouses such as London, Paris, New York, Luxembourg and Dublin, as well as cities in countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative such as Astana and Casablanca.

Many multinationals also saw the untapped potential of the Chinese market and set up their regional and global R&D centers in Pudong.

By the end of last year, Pudong housed the headquarters of over 600 enterprises, of which 304 are multinationals. The number accounted for nearly half of Shanghai's total.

In the future, Pudong will take full advantage of the opportunities brought about by its China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone. It will implement a number of innovative foreign-invested projects and accelerate the development of offshore trade, intermediary trade and service trade, so as to continue to improve its global resource allocation capacity.