Shanghai kicked off the new year with a strong start in attracting investment.
Looking back now, it’s clear that the city has rolled out aggressive measures, launching a long-awaited campaign to defend its manufacturing sector.
With Shanghai in the spotlight, every move it makes to attract investment is closely watched across the country.
In the drive to attract investment and boost the economy, we see:
Behind the “Invest in Shanghai · China Tour” initiative, local governments are vying to act as “investment recruiters.”
01
First-ever nationwide tour

In school, the students who inspire the most envy are those who not only rank at the top of the class but also study even harder than you do.
In the battle for investment, top-performing Shanghai has made an extraordinary move, kicking off the year with a “blitz.”
In March, led by the Municipal Party Secretary and the Mayor, a delegation visited the neighboring provinces of Jiangsu, Anhui, and Zhejiang in one go.
The key word: cooperation.
At the same time, officials were dispatched to Beijing to establish the city’s first service center there. Clearly, Shanghai’s investment promotion efforts have once again extended to Beijing .
It is worth noting that the involvement of top-level officials in investment promotion has become increasingly prominent.
To determine the compatibility between enterprises and industries, and to truly understand the development and current state of the sector.
Visiting factories is akin to due diligence—it is essential to conduct on-site research .
By sensing the scent of steel, one can detect project leads and achieve precise matching.
When Shanghai went to Chengdu to attract investment, all 16 districts mobilized directly, with government leadership teams leading the way.
This pace of investment promotion is rarely seen in other Chinese cities—leadership teams from every district collectively mobilized, working at full throttle, and traveling far and wide.
To summarize Shanghai’s investment promotion activities this year, three phrases suffice:
Full-scale mobilization, expanded scope, and targeted investment promotion.
One is “Bringing the Elephants Home,” focusing on major projects, large enterprises, and strategic positioning in emerging sectors.
The other is “The Army of Ants,” which targets high-quality enterprises with smaller investment scales.
Simply put, what Shanghai lacks are high-quality resources—which is precisely the “output per acre” principle it has consistently emphasized .
Therefore, the entry barriers remain relatively high . Consequently, regrettably, some enterprises have turned to neighboring cities like Suzhou, Wuxi, Hangzhou, and Ningbo. Naturally, these cities welcome them with open arms, even euphemistically calling it “capturing Shanghai’s spillover effects.”
True to its reputation as the “big brother” of Shanghai, the city either doesn’t do something at all, or it goes all out when it does. The aggressive momentum of investment promotion is just the surface; to understand why it’s so aggressive, one must uncover what lies beneath. This “underlying factor” is the manufacturingstrategic planthat Shanghai currently prioritizes most.
02
Bending Down Without Looking at Three Things

We often hear investment promotion professionals complain:
New projects are becoming harder to understand, major projects harder to assess, small projects less appealing, and good projects harder to close.
In short, the old methods don’t work, and they don’t know the new ones. In fact, the logic of investment promotion is no longer about sitting back and waiting for companies and projects to come knocking.
Against the backdrop of new industries emerging constantly and regions scrambling to compete with resources, capabilities, and investment promotion efforts, the key lies in whether we can truly conduct in-depth research and gain insights into industries, grasp and anticipate industry trends, and let enterprises feel the local area’s upward momentum and service efficiency.
Therefore, Shanghai has long proposed a new investment promotion philosophy known as the “Three Focuses and Three Non-Focuses,” namely: “Focus on business models rather than tax revenue; focus on potential rather than profitability; and focus on the team rather than credentials.”
This means that when Shanghai “goes out” to attract investment, it does not rely on blindly offering policies or competing on terms, but rather takes a targeted approach through scientific planning to deeply integrate and align attracted projects with local industries. This provides a stage for enterprise development while also creating room for regional growth, fostering a virtuous cycle of mutual empowerment.
As for Shanghai, whether it is an economically developed city or a region lagging behind it, as long as the fit is right, cooperation is possible.
This is precisely why —Shanghai is willing to visit and explore any city with a GDP exceeding 2 trillion yuan.
With an economic scale of 4 trillion yuan, it is still “lowering its standards” to cast a wide net. This major economic hub understands exactly what kind of enterprises to attract, how to engage in repeated communication with them, and what arguments can persuade investment decision-makers.
In fact, since the beginning of the year, we’ve seen Jiangsu and Zhejiang scrambling to secure orders abroad, and major cities have been rolling out economic stimulus plans one after another.
As for Shanghai today, it hasn’t stopped at mere slogans; it’s actively pursuing foreign investment to rapidly implement measures and is going all out to stimulate the economy.
It’s worth noting that Shanghai’s market influence can help companies expand their product reach nationwide and even promote them overseas.
This is why Shanghai has never relied solely on policy incentives.
Currently, the industrial ecosystem is relatively well-established, providing ample platforms for collaboration. Within a short timeframe, it is possible to assemble the best teams to get projects off the ground. The market is open and inclusive, with abundant information and resources, which significantly enhances entrepreneurs’ decision-making acumen.
Great projects lack no land, great industries lack no space, great applications lack no scenarios, great ideas lack no talent, and great teams lack no resources.
03
Collaborative Investment Promotion Emphasizes Contracts

This year, Shanghai is going all out in investment promotion, establishing a 100-billion-yuan industrial fund.
Notably, regarding the “new model” of investment promotion, Shanghai is strengthening investment-driven investment promotion.
It supports the participation of social capital, industrial park platforms, and state-owned capital in establishing a series of industrial investment funds totaling 100 billion yuan, focusing on facilitating the implementation of investment promotion projects, streamlining industrial investment and financing channels, and achieving project attraction through investment.
At the same time, the "Investment Promotion Policy" focuses on three leading industries—integrated circuits, biopharmaceuticals, and artificial intelligence—as well as four emerging sectors: smart terminals, green and low-carbon development, the digital economy, and the metaverse.
In this competition, various regions are continuously rolling out substantial policies, with some even competing on policy intensity to attract investors from all sectors; the difference lies in the scale of these efforts.
The point is, with limited resources and tight fiscal budgets, it is best to spend money where it matters most.
If we want businesses to understand a region’s industrial development strategy and spatial planning, it really isn’t achieved through just one or two policies or blueprints. It depends more on the flow and matching of resources, as well as the business environment.
Against the backdrop of many regions across the country competing to attract investment, some have proposed “move-in-ready” packages, offering tangible financial support to businesses. But just as companies can move in with their bags, they can also pack up and leave.
This has turned some companies into “money-guzzlers.”There is a disconnect between where actual business operations take place and where a company is registered; businesses simply go wherever the most preferential policies are offered.
The head of a certain new energy company stated that he had visited many places across the country to assess the investment environment. In some areas, the printed list of general preferential policies was thicker than a book, promising to provide funding, land, and subsidies.
However, once a company settles in, it easily loses the upper hand. Promises remain unfulfilled—"all talk and no action"—which directly reflects the local business environment.
A few years ago, a foreign-invested enterprise was organizing an event at the Shanghai Exhibition Center. They had paid the fees and set up the exhibition, with costs running into the tens of millions.
However, the Exhibition Center suddenly received notice that senior leadership needed the venue for a meeting.
They assumed the event would be canceled. Unexpectedly, a leader from the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce took the initiative to report the situation to the top leadership.
The leadership stated that the event must proceed as per the contract and that the meeting must not interfere with the company’s business activities.
This exemplifies a business environment characterized by openness, transparency, and respect for contractual agreements.
Shanghai has always been a bellwether.