Global executives converged on Shanghai on March 14 for the 2026 Global Investment Promotion Conference, spotlighting the city’s role as a gateway for capital into China’s new development blueprint.

The summit positioned Shanghai as a strategic engine driving investment across the Yangtze River Delta and the nation. With the 15th Five-Year Plan now in motion, China is urging global entrepreneurs to seize opportunities for joint growth. As China’s top economic hub, Shanghai is pledging a world-class environment for business, innovation and consumption, reinforcing its influence in finance, trade, shipping and scientific research.

Officials stressed that advancing manufacturing, as well as energizing the service sector and integrating industries will be critical to nurturing "new quality productive forces", referring to emerging drivers of growth rooted in sci-tech innovation, industrial upgrading and future industries.

"What gives us confidence is the strong strategic planning in China. So with the upcoming 15th Five-Year Plan, we see a lot of elements which resonate very well with our own strategy. Shanghai's industrial policies are also very favorable for us - AI is mentioning, bio-medicine is mentioning, semiconductors - that's all we do. But maybe even more important going forward is that we can learn from the ecosystem and the innovativeness in China and participate as a global company," said Martin Fischer, President and CEO of ZEISS Greater China.

"Our product is GPU. GPUs need a lot of high-speed computing that can do a lot of work from professional design, to gaming, and also AI inference, that can [be] applied to everyone. In China, there's a huge market here and a lot of great engineers here. So, we started our design here, and we're going to create a business here. This product is completely designed in China," said Xuan Yifang, Chairman and CEO of Lisuan Tech.

"Our cargo eVTOL aircraft has already obtained the test flight permit, production license, and individual aircraft test flight certificate from the Civil Aviation Administration of China, which is referred to as having all three certificates. In this process, obtaining the test flight permit involved numerous tests and subjects to ensure procedural compliance, which guarantees that our aircraft meets very high standards in safety, efficiency, and operations," said Sunny Sun, Senior Vice President of AutoFlight.

"If you are acting international, you should also be very active in China, and we started investing in China over 10 years ago. We're very serious about this region and we have a very positive image about China for the next few years," said Joris van Leeuwen, Chief Revenue Officer of Lucanet.

In 2025, Shanghai attracted 1.26 trillion yuan (about 183 billion U.S. dollars) in major projects, more than half in industrial, software and information services. With the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) setting high-quality development as a national priority, officials say investing in China today is a bet on the future.