Shanghai's Pudong New Area backs foreign-funded R&D centers

The Pudong New Area in Shanghai in East China held a conference on March 6 to promote the development of foreign-funded research and development centers in the area.

The conference awarded certificates to seven foreign-funded R&D centers that obtained tax exemptions for scientific and technological innovation imports into the Pudong New Area.

Shanghai is the city with the most foreign-funded R&D centers on Chinese mainland, with nearly half of them located in the Pudong New Area. As of February, it had 254 foreign-funded R&D centers, including seven global ones.

Foreign-funded R&D centers are widely said to play an important role in driving talent and enterprise innovation, enhancing Shanghai's position and level in the global R&D system. They connect Shanghai with the global innovation network and help it to evolve as a globally influential science and innovation center.

The conference released several measures to support foreign-funded R&D centers to gather innovative development.

These include steps to support their establishment and upgrading, facilitate their certification and strengthen intellectual property protection. They also include measures to optimize services for foreign personnel, improve recruitment mechanisms, support science and technology innovation center platforms construction and to make things easier to secure research supplies and materials.

Also at the conference, seven newly established R&D center enterprises in Shanghai signed project contracts with their respective development zones.

The contracted projects cover niche industries such as medical imaging systems, high-strength fasteners for automobiles and engineering machinery and R&D on new medicines for autoimmune diseases.