Shanghai has vowed to provide increasing support for more businesses and investors from across the globe to develop in China.

"Shanghai was born and prospered through its commitment to openness," stated Shanghai Party Secretary Chen Jining during his speech at the 'Invest in China Year' Summit and Shanghai City Promotion at the 6th China International Import Expo on Sunday.

Chen added that Shanghai has continued to increase its advantages in openness, and its global integration has risen consistently.

As it stands, Shanghai ranks in sixth place in regard to global economic output and has retained its position in terms of foreign trade volume, home to more than 70,000 foreign-funded enterprises.

"Through the window of Shanghai, everyone can witness China's resolute strides towards expanding openness. This view offers a glimpse of China's bright economic prospects in the long term and the significant opportunities brought about by China's unique form of modernisation," Chen stated.

Indeed, a large number of overseas firms view Shanghai as the primary choice to develop their business within the Chinese market, and have made future investment plans in Shanghai, Shine News reports.

As an example, 3M is one of the first wholly-owned foreign enterprises in the country and the first in Shanghai, with the firm "very encouraged about the future of the economy here."

"I think Shanghai is one of the key areas not only in China but in the world that is attracting multinational companies as well as a number of others," according to senior vice president of 3M, Edward Kaleta.

"So that's the reason that we're here for the CIIE: to interact with Chinese government officials as well as other businesses to figure out where there's opportunities. But you can see just by walking around – this is where the action is. And we want to be part of that to try to identify future investment opportunities."

In addition, senior vice president of Organon and president of Organon China, Zafer Unluer said that global CEO Kevin Ali went to Shanghai in September to meet Mayor, Gong Zheng.

"In that meeting we talked about our interests to make Shanghai home not only to our China operations, but also to our global operations," Unluer said.