Hema Fresh, a grocery chain backed by e-commerce giant Alibaba, opened its global headquarters in the Lujiazui area of Pudong, Shanghai on Dec 31.

Hema chose Lujiazui as its global headquarters due to its strong business environment and because the area is playing a leading role in new retail industry in China, said Yuan Ruofan, head of the industrial development center of Hema Fresh.

"Hema's new headquarters and industrial base in Pudong will inject the company with new growth momentum and drive the high-quality development of Pudong," Yuan added.

It is Pudong's most open and inclusive business environment, with its efforts in institutional innovation, that contributed to the settlement of Hema Fresh's global headquarters. The Shanghai-born fresh food chain has seen rapid growth since it first obtained its business license in 2016, and has opened more than 600 stores in 24 cities across the country.

"Shanghai has the largest group of consumers in China, and it is a testing area for new retail sales. The Lujiazui area in Shanghai is an important business district for high-end consumption in Shanghai, and leads the city in consumption trends," said Yuan.

Local authorities said that the settlement of its global headquarters in Lujiazui will promote the high-quality development of Hema, and will help Pudong grow into a new hub for the development of the online new economy.

Currently, Lujiazui is ramping up efforts to develop its headquarters economy, aiming to become a cluster for higher-level global headquarters.