Shanghai, China's financial hub and a popular foreign investment destination, hosted 1,060 regional headquarters of multinational companies and 631 foreign-invested research and development (R&D) centers as of September this year, latest data from the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce showed.

Zhu Min, the commission's director, told a conference on Wednesday that the functional capabilities of these regional headquarters -- spanning investment decision-making, R&D innovation, financial management, procurement and distribution, and supply chain management -- have been continuously enhanced.

They form a sophisticated network of global resource allocation and play a vital role in strengthening Shanghai's urban competencies and international influence, Zhu said.

More than half of the foreign-invested R&D centers in Shanghai are concentrated in key industrial chains such as biomedicine, information technology, and automotive components, facilitating the aggregation of global sci-tech resources and fostering scientific, technological, and industrial development, he added.

In the first nine months of this year, Shanghai saw 4,764 newly established foreign-invested enterprises, a year-on-year increase of 5.5 percent. To date, the metropolis has attracted over 370 billion U.S. dollars in cumulative foreign investment and hosts nearly 80,000 foreign-invested firms.

Foreign firms contribute about one-fourth of Shanghai's GDP and one-third of its tax revenue, according to the commission.

Industry insiders have also noted growing confidence reflected in foreign-investment rankings.

A total of 265 foreign-invested enterprises made it onto Shanghai's 2024 top-100 rankings in four key categories -- business revenue, import and export volume, tax, and job creation -- seven more than last year, according to the Shanghai Foreign Investment Association.

The rankings reflect robust confidence among multinationals in Shanghai's high-quality development and its growing appeal to global investors, said Huang Feng, president of the association.

Among the 265 companies, U.S. firms took the lead with 87 entries, accounting for 32.83 percent of the total, followed by Japanese companies with 33 and German firms with 26. "This marks the fifth consecutive year that U.S. enterprises have ranked first in number, demonstrating their strong commitment to the Chinese market," Huang said.

Notably, nine companies appeared on all four lists. Tesla stood out as the only enterprise ranked in the top 10 across all four categories.

From producing the 5-millionth battery pack at its Shanghai Gigafactory to the Asia-Pacific debut of its self-driving Cybercab at the just-concluded eighth China International Import Expo, the U.S. electric vehicle giant continues to strengthen its footprint in Shanghai.

"The industrial chain localization rate of the Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory has exceeded 95 percent," said Tao Lin, vice president of Tesla. "It has driven the formation of a 100-billion-yuan new energy vehicle industry cluster in Shanghai. We plan to carry out more localized R&D in China in the future."

Looking ahead, Zhu said that Shanghai will advance its high-level opening up and continue to foster a market-oriented, law-based and internationalized business environment.