With the deepening of the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta (YRD), enterprises there tend to place their management, marketing, trade, financing and other functional headquarters in the bridgehead of delta integration – Shanghai's Hongqiao Central Business District (CBD).

In order to further this trend, Hongqiao CBD has spawned many YRD corporate headquarters cluster platforms, such as a listed enterprise headquarters park and a center for e-commerce.

According to incomplete statistics, more than 40 percent of enterprises settled in Hongqiao CBD come from the YRD region.

"The biggest feeling of entering Hongqiao CBD is 'being closer to the world'," said Ren Bingjun, vice-chairman of Zhejiang Chengyi Pharmaceutical Co Ltd. The company moved its headquarters from a small island in Dongtou district in Wenzhou to Hongqiao R&F Center in the core area of Hongqiao CBD in 2018.

"After coming to Hongqiao, we established cooperative relations with a number of scientific research institutions such as Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and soon connected with foreign suppliers of raw materials and equipment manufacturers. The company's sales and profit growth in the past two years has been around 30 to 40 percent," Ren said.

According to Hong Wei, general manager of R&F Group in Shanghai, Hongqiao R&F Center is home to 22 enterprises, 20 of which are from the YRD region.

Last month, the Jiangsu Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai and the Zhejiang Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai signed contracts with Hongqiao CBD.

The Jiangsu Chamber of Commerce will encourage well-known enterprises in the province to move to Hongqiao to form a business center integrating office, hotel, finance, exhibition and other functions.

And the Zhejiang Chamber of Commerce will build a headquarters park for Zhejiang merchants in Hongqiao CBD, gather representative industry leaders and leading enterprises in Zhejiang, introduce regional headquarters or functional headquarters, and form a new highland for the headquarters economy.