Liu Duo, vice-mayor of Shanghai, attends a publicity campaign focused on multinational corporations in China on Friday in Shanghai. The campaign launched on Friday as part of a series of activities for the year of 2023 is organized by the Office of the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission in Beijing and other six Chinese cities. [Photo by Gao Erqiang/chinadaily.com.cn]

A publicity campaign focused on multinational corporations in China was launched on Friday in Shanghai as part of a series of activities for the year of 2023 organized by the Office of the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission in Beijing and other six Chinese cities, according to official sources.

As the location of the first National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Shanghai has more than 60,000 foreign-invested enterprises, and up to 891 multinational corporation's regional headquarters and 531 foreign-funded R&D centers are based in the city, said Liu Duo, vice-mayor of Shanghai.

The Office of the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission has launched a total of 225 projects as key themed publicity and topics for media coverage in 2023.

Among them, the Shanghai's themed publicity campaign on multinationals in Shanghai aims to aid the nation's major news portals as well as mainstream media in Shanghai to conduct a series of on-the-spot interviews at well-known multinational corporations that have deep roots in the city.

The new media coverage will depict the vigorous development taking place in foreign-funded enterprises in Shanghai, and the city's high-standard business environment.

Shanghai's actual use of foreign direct investment rose 0.4 percent year-on-year to $23.96 billion in 2022, and 96.3 percent of the investment went to the tertiary industry, said Xue Feng director of the Shanghai Foreign Investment Development Board.

In 2023, the city has set a target of having its actual use of foreign direct investment rise to about $24 billion, and to have another 60 multinational corporation's regional headquarters and 25 foreign-funded R&D centers set up in the year, Xue said.