The 10th round-table conference between the Shanghai government and the city's enterprises was held recently. It was the last round-table conference for 2019 and was specially held for US-funded companies.

Representatives from regional headquarters and research and development (R&D) centers of more than 10 US-funded companies–such as Exxon Mobil, Boeing, United Family Healthcare and Thermo Fisher Scientific–had face-to-face meetings with representatives of Shanghai's commission of commerce, development and reform commission, commission of the economy and informatization, and other government departments.

To optimize Shanghai's business environment and help foreign-funded enterprises solve difficulties and problems in production and management, an idea of government-enterprise cooperation round-table conference, led by the commission of commerce, was put forward in 2018.

Since the beginning of 2019, round-table conferences had been held 10 times, and about 200 questions had been brought up by foreign-funded enterprises.

According to government officials, 85 percent of the more than 180 questions brought up in the first nine sessions this year have been resolved.

The round-table conference has been regarded as an important mechanism in Shanghai's foreign investment promotion work, which took foreign investment in Shanghai to a new level in 2019.

Statistics show that by the end of November this year, Shanghai had seen 6,168 new foreign-funded projects, up by 29.3 percent year-on-year; contracted foreign investment in Shanghai reached $45.93 billion, up by 14.6 percent year-on-year; actual foreign investment reached $17.82 billion, up by 10.8 percent year-on-year; 715 regional headquarters of multinational corporations had been established in the city, including 115 headquarters in greater China, Asia and Asia Pacific, and 456 foreign-funded R&D centers.