Photo shows a night view of Shanghai, East China. Photo: Xinhua

Shanghai aims to attract more overseas talent and investment with the construction of the Hongqiao international opening-up hub, a newly announced major project that will stretch from the Hongqiao area, in the west of Shanghai, to its neighboring cities. The project will facilitate the integrated development of East China's Yangtze River Delta.

Shanghai will encourage international companies to set global or regional capital management centers and headquarters in the region, according to the plan of the construction of the Hongqiao international opening-up hub released on Wednesday.

A batch of professional trade platforms and national commodity trading centers will be built in the region to facilitate trade among Belt and Road Initiative countries and regions.

Foreign investors will be allowed to participate in the construction of theatres, cinemas, concert halls and other cultural venues in the area. Restrictions on foreign-funded non-profit nursing homes will be relaxed.

Moreover, the Hongqiao international opening-up hub will invite international economic and trade arbitration institutions, trade promotion associations and commerce chambers to settle down in the region.

In a bid to attract outstanding overseas skilled professionals to the hub, Shanghai will carry out a pilot reform on talent management in the city's Hongqiao Business District, with convenient visa, residence and permanent residence application procedures for high-level overseas talents to work or carry out academic exchange and cooperation in China, 

Selected foreign medical professionals who wish to reside and work in the Hongqiao region will also benefit, according to Shanghai's plan.

The hub will support certified high-level foreign professionals to set up scientific and technological enterprises with their permanent residence identity cards and enjoy the same treatment as Chinese citizens.

The city will also set up pilot schools for the children of expats living in China, which is the first time this is proposed in the country.

China's State Council approved the overall plan for the construction of the Hongqiao international opening-up hub in February. The project connects Shanghai's Changning, Qingpu and Jinshan districts with Suzhou, Haiyan, and Haining, cities in Zhejiang, Anhui and Jiangsu provinces. It covers an area of 7,000 square kilometers, of which about 2,100 square kilometers are in Shanghai, accounting for about one third of the city's area.

With comprehensive measures on investment, infrastructures, international trade, talent management, transportation and free trade, the Hongqiao international opening-up hub is expected to become one of the areas with the strongest development vitality, excellent growth potential, and the highest degree of opening up in the Yangtze River Delta, according to the overall plan.