Katia Deng/ Shanghai Daily news

Shanghai approved another 25 multinational companies to set up regional headquarters in Shanghai yesterday, including Schindler, Mazda, Yazaki and Bridgestone.

Shanghai approved 1,953 foreign-funded projects in the first half of this year, with total contracted capital of US$6.78 billion, a drop of six percent year-on-year. But foreign direct investment hit US$4.3 billion, up 7.3 percent from a year earlier.

Many of Shanghai-based multinationals have set up a complete industry chain to develop their businesses. The revenue of foreign-funded companies amounted to 880 billion yuan (US$116 billion) in the first half of 2007, up 22.8 percent year-on-year. Total profit of these companies rose 44 percent to 54.60 billion yuan.

By the end of June, foreign-invested companies employed 1.75 million people, an increase of 9.8 percent from the previous year.

So far, Shanghai is home to 174 regional headquarters of multinationals, 156 investment corporations and 204 foreign-invested R&D institutions.