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Multinationals Keen on Shanghai's PudongGunther Strobel, President of Shanghai Bell Company Limited, has always wondered at traditional Chinese culture, and that's why he adorns his office with delicate model terra-cotta warriors and porcelain.But Strobel is even more surprised by his company's performance in the Pudong New Area, an emerging financial and trade zone set up in the early 1990s in China's leading industrial center of Shanghai. A Sino-Belgian joint venture which moved into Pudong in 1995, Shanghai Bell achieved about 900 million U.S. dollars in sales last year, compared with 540 million U.S. dollars in 1995. While holding a 30 percent share of China's program-controlled phone business, it has sold more than 100 million U.S. dollars worth of products in other countries. "Pudong is a new starting point for us," Strobel said. "It's enabling us to secure an increasingly larger share of the market in the world as well as in this country." The latest statistics indicate that 98 of the world's top 500 corporations, including General Motors, Volkswagen, BASF, and Intel, have already opened some 180 subsidiaries in Pudong, with a total contractual overseas investment of more than eight billion U. S. dollars. Some multinationals have even moved their Asia and China headquarters to this area. Many executives of these companies share Strobel's view, saying that Pudong, with an immense hinterland along the Yangtze River and aiming to become an international banking, trade, tourism, and conference and exhibition center, boasts great potential business opportunities. Pudong is an entrance both to the entire Chinese market and to the broader global market, said Toru Mitarai, general manager of the Sanwa Bank Limited Shanghai Branch. Toru Mitarai's bank, one of the 42 overseas-funded banks in Pudong, has more than 600 clients, and its outstanding loans have reached 900 million U.S. dollars, with total savings deposits climbing to 230 million U.S. dollars. Pudong is sure to become as active as London, New York, and Singapore in economic development so long as it keeps on moving forward, the banker said, adding that this will provide many chances to expand the banking sector. Intel Technology (China) Ltd. in Pudong's Waigaoqiao Bonded Zone is Intel's first production base in China and its second in the world. Since it went into operation in 1998, it has been producing three million chips a week, 90 percent of which have been sold outside China. Jim M. Lee, general manager of Intel Technology (China) Ltd., attributed his company's success partly to an improving business environment that is basically based on international practice. For instance, Lee said, the local Customs House has extended its office hours to seven days a week to promptly meet the needs of Intel Technology and other companies. "This helps sharpen the competitiveness of our products," Lee added. Pudong set the goal of operating in accordance with international practice, said Ruan Yanhua, vice-director of the Pudong New Area Administration, and its overall planning was done jointly by several well-known urban planning bodies selected through international bidding. While implementing a series of preferential policies to investors, Ruan said, Pudong has built 10 major infrastructure projects, and has another 10 under way, including an international airport, a subway, and a pedestrian passage across the Huangpu River separating the area from downtown Shanghai. At least 200 billion yuan has already been used for infrastructure construction in the area. Impressed by the great changes taking place in Pudong, Daniel Lam, manager of the Shanghai Branch of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corp. (HSBC), who came to work in Pudong nine years ago, revealed that HSBC is considering moving its China headquarters to this area. "I have no doubt of China's determination to turn this area into an international center of finance and trade," Lam said.
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