Foreign-funded Enterprise Roundtable
On December 16th, the Shanghai Municipal Market Supervision Administration held a roundtable meeting for foreign-invested enterprises to gain an in-depth understanding of their development in Shanghai, promote continuous improvement of the business environment, and fully serve the development of foreign-invested enterprises in Shanghai. Ni Junnan, Secretary of the Party Leadership Group and Director of the Administration, and Peng Wenhao, a member of the Party Leadership Group, Deputy Director, and First-Class Inspector, attended the meeting.
Dr. Wang Xin, Global Partner and Co-Chair of the Asia-Pacific Region, and Chairman of Frost & Sullivan China, was invited to attend the Roundtable and deliver a speech.
Roundtable event venue
This meeting focused on extensively listening to the opinions and suggestions of foreign-funded enterprises on how to better serve their development in Shanghai. The aim is to promote the regular resolution of development challenges through enterprise roundtable discussions, establish a long-term mechanism, continuously improve the level of government services and the quality and efficiency of supervision and law enforcement by the market supervision system, solve the difficulties and bottlenecks encountered by foreign-funded enterprises in their operation and development in Shanghai, and fully serve the safe and stable development of foreign-funded enterprises in Shanghai.
A total of 16 representatives from foreign-invested enterprises and chambers of commerce were invited to participate in this roundtable. The enterprise representatives mainly come from multinational company headquarters and leading enterprises in industries such as biomedicine, high-end manufacturing, daily chemicals, medical technology, entertainment services, professional consulting, animal health care, food and beverage ingredients, catering services, and cosmetics. At the meeting, representatives included Budweiser Group, Honeywell, US Chamber of Commerce, PepsiCo, Merck Sharp & Dohme, Inviva, Disney, Frost & Sullivan, Ernst & Young, Michelin,Boehringer IngelheimRepresentatives from 16 enterprises and chambers of commerce, including Johnson & Johnson, Unilever, McDonald's, Merck, and Amorelia, spoke in succession. They introduced the current development status of their enterprises and put forward opinions, suggestions, and demands regarding difficulties and bottlenecks faced by their enterprises, such as regulatory enforcement, fair competition, intellectual property protection, occupational claims, market access, etc.
Dr. Wang Xin stated that in the past three years, Frost & Sullivan has truly felt the significant optimization of the business environment in Shanghai. As the only sample city for China to participate in the World Bank's Business Environment Assessment, Shanghai performed outstandingly in the World Bank's 2025 China Enterprise Survey data—22 out of 59 assessment points reached the global best level. This not only signifies that Shanghai's reform achievements have been internationally recognized but also establishes its status as a 'wind vane' for China's business environment construction. At the same time, Shanghai actively cooperates with the General Administration to promote the construction of a unified national market, and its accumulated successful experience continues to lead the country. Based on Shanghai's excellent business environment, Frost & Sullivan is actively promoting the relocation of its Asia-Pacific headquarters to Shanghai on top of establishing a China headquarters in Shanghai. Dr. Wang Xin expressed gratitude to regulatory authorities for their early planning for the next year's business environment 9.0 version through policy-enterprise exchanges at the end of the year. He revealed that the Chinese version of 'Go Global - The Growth Coaching Book', also known as 'Guide to Enterprise Growth Overseas', will be launched in Shanghai soon. In the future, Frost & Sullivan will continue to leverage its professional advisory advantages in capital markets to fully escort Chinese enterprises' 'going global', resonate with regulatory authorities in the direction of 'marketization, rule of law, and internationalization', and actively cooperate to jointly help Shanghai build an internationally first-class business environment and enhance the global competitiveness of Chinese enterprises.
The meeting required that we should adhere to problem-oriented and effect-oriented approaches, and make every effort to resolve the issues and demands reflected by foreign-funded enterprises. We need to further enhance the convenience of registration for foreign-invested enterprises. We should optimize and simplify the registration process for foreign-funded enterprises in accordance with the law, shorten processing times, and improve their experience and satisfaction. We need to provide greater support for foreign-invested enterprises to participate in standardization work. We should give full play to the role of the Shanghai Foreign-invested Enterprises Standardization Cooperation Platform, encourage foreign-invested enterprises to participate in standard setting or revision, and ensure that foreign-funded enterprises enjoy equal access to standardization policies in accordance with the law. We need to coordinate and optimize law enforcement inspections involving foreign-invested enterprises more vigorously. We should optimize and expand the hierarchical classification inspection model of 'risk + credit', expand the application scenarios of seamless supervision and off-site inspections, strengthen compliance guidance for foreign-funded enterprises, implement inclusive and prudent supervision equally, and enhance their confidence in investing in Shanghai. We need to strengthen the innovation protection of foreign-invested enterprises more vigorously. We should continuously increase the intensity of intellectual property law enforcement, and severely investigate and deal with illegal acts such as trademark, patent, geographical indication, and trade secret infringement against foreign-funded enterprises. We should coordinate with the law to combat profit-driven professional claims and reports, and protect the lawful and compliant operation of foreign-funded enterprises in Shanghai.
Next, the Shanghai Municipal Market Supervision Administration will further improve the regular liaison mechanism with foreign-invested enterprises, expand communication channels, implement the 'service package' system for key foreign-funded enterprises, provide point-to-point services for foreign-funded enterprises, transform the 'demand list' of enterprises into a 'service list', actively respond to personalized demands of enterprises, and fully serve the development of foreign-invested enterprises in Shanghai.
