Shanghai government officials announced that the city will be offering a new foreign investment guideline platform on the sidelines of the CIIE. The recent news sends a message to encourage more foreign investment flow into the city. Industry insiders are optimistic about the near future.

Yang Chao, deputy director of Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce, said the CIIE is an ideal time to gather together business people from all over the world and draw in more overseas investment.

"On top of the CIIE, the Shanghai government will be inviting some attendees from the expo to attend our city's promotion meetings. We will also set up a personalized investment service platform for domestic and overseas organizations during the CIIE," Yang added.

In addition to city authorities, leaders from the city's foreign firms also attended today's conference, most from the pharma sector. More than 60 Fortune 500 pharma firms are expected to attend the CIIE this year, double last year's total. Delegates from some large pharma firms also shared their impressions and expectations for the upcoming event at the conference.

Bayer Limited is one of the attendees at the conference. The company's chief financial officer for Greater China, Ulrich Stefer, said the event is a unique opportunity to exchange, collaborate with government officials and exchange different points of views and see the latest trends.

"For us, it is a very important event to showcase our innovative products and modern development concepts together with hundreds of companies all over the world… we want to use the opportunity to further exchange our views and see where we can have opportunities to invest more," he added.

Meanwhile, Boehringer Ingelheim's CEO, Felix Gutsche, said that China has a lot of room for development. "We continue to believe that China is a very attractive and important market," he said, "We are very dedicated to begin to partner in innovation. We find the climate in China, especially in Shanghai very positive."

According to the 2020 Doing Business report published last week, China was ranked 31st globally on the ease of doing business, up from 46th place last year. The evaluation of China is mainly based on the business climate in Shanghai. In the first three quarters of the year, Shanghai has attracted almost $37 billion' worth of overseas capital, a nearly nine percent year-on-year growth.