Italian-based catering company opens 1st Bistrot store in Lujiazui

chinadaily.com.cnUpdated:2017-12-06

Autogrill, an Italian-based, multinational catering company, recently opened its first Bistrot restaurant in China - Bistrot Shanghai Century Ave – at Bailian Century Mall in Shanghai's Lujiazui area.

Bistrot is a trademark of Autogrill, dedicated to meeting traditional and modern consumption habits and giving consumers authentic food flavor. Bistrot pays exceptional attention to food, ingredients, quality and origin.

Bistrot Shanghai Century Ave offers genuine Italian dishes including handmade pizzas and pastas, freshly baked breads, locally grown vegetables and carefully selected traditional products.

Bistrot Shanghai Century Ave, located in Shanghai's Lujiazui area, is the first Bistrot restaurant in China that Autogrill, an Italian-based, multinational catering company has opened.[Photo/WeChat account: lujiazuijrc]

Interior of the Bistrot Shanghai Century Ave, a newly-opened restaurant offering Italian dishes. [Photo/WeChat account: lujiazuijrc]

The Bistrot Shanghai Century Ave is decorated with floor-to-ceiling windows, enabling clients to enjoy the warm sunlight while eating. [Photo/WeChat account: lujiazuijrc]

Handmade pizzas offered at the Bistrot Shanghai Century Ave. [Photo/WeChat account: lujiazuijrc]

Pastas made by chefs at the Bistrot Shanghai Century Ave. [Photo/WeChat account: lujiazuijrc]

Carefully selected beef steak, is chewier and has less fat than traditional Italian beef steak, offered at the Bistrot Shanghai Century Ave. [Photo/WeChat account: lujiazuijrc]

Shanghai opens innovation center in Silicon Valley

sh-italent.comUpdated:2017-05-10

Shanghai Shibei High-tech Park has launched a new innovation base in Silicon Valley, the world's leading technology hub, on May 6.

The prominent Shanghai cloud computing and big data industry space hopes to establish this as an overseas anchor for Chinese companies. The center plans to help local research institutions in technical innovation, market development, and financing.

Shibei High-tech Park, located in Jing'an district, has played a key role in the city's strategy of building itself into a global sci-tech innovation center, according to Lin Xiaojue, director of the district’s science and technology committee. It believes the Silicon Valley project represents a natural step forward.

Thus far, the park has succeeded in supporting nearly 50 big data enterprises and has formed a vibrant industrial ecosystem. Companies aided by the park span across a range of industries including government administration, healthcare, education, finance, and tourism.

The park has enjoyed rapid development with some companies seeing the domestic market as insufficient to fill a desire to play a global role, hence the opening of the base in Silicon Valley.

"We hope our US-based innovation center can serve as a 'green channel' to facilitate the big data resources and talent exchange between Shanghai and the US, and help more Chinese enterprises go global," Liu added.

 

Shanghai Shibei High-tech Park holds an opening ceremony for its US innovation center at the Stanford University, the US on May 6. [Photo provided to sh-italent.com]

Rapid development of Lujiazui marvels US delegation

An aerial view of Lujiazui, Shanghai's financial hub [Photo/pdtimes.com.cn]

A 70-member delegation from the Stern School of Business at New York University, the United States paid a visit to Lujiazui Financial City, Pudong New Area of Shanghai, on March 19.

The delegation was made up of teachers and students on the Executive Master of Business Administration (EMBA) program from the university, with most of the visiting students being senior executives from US financial institutions or technology companies.

Gladstone Alexander Aeschbach, or Gao Leshi in Chinese, is an American who studied in Fudan University in 2010 and worked in Shanghai for a few years after graduation. With a good command of Chinese, he is also known as a "know it all" of China.

"I was thrilled as this is the first time that I have returned to Shanghai and to Lujiazui in five years after returning home in 2014," said Aeschbach, noting that great changes have taken place in Lujiazui.

Despite Aeschbach currently working in the US, he has expressed his wish to go back to Shanghai. "The city is full of opportunities," he said.

Lujiazui Financial City, which represents the height and speed of China's economic development, is a window for the world to know about China, said He Jianmu, an official from the Shanghai Lujiazui financial development bureau.

He added that the financial hub not only boasts a dazzling skyline, but also has one of the highest economic densities in China, with 300 out of Fortune Global 500 companies having set up regional headquarters or branches in the area, thanks to its open business environment, rising status as an international financial hub, professional financial talents, and diverse living environment.

Arun Sundararajan, a professor from the Stern School of Business at New York University, said that he has been to Lujiazui six times over the past four years, and was marveled by the development of Lujiazui every time he came.

"I hope our students majoring in EMBA could have a better understanding of China's business environment and the development path of China's financial market and capital market through the trip, and take conducting business in China in the future into account," Sundararajan told the reporter.

As Lujiazui Financial City will attract more attention from the world in the future as it continues to develop, He expressed his wishes that the students pay regular visits to Lujiazui and invest and start businesses in the area.

Students from the Stern School of Business at New York University attend a seminar in Lujiazui Financial City, Pudong New Area on March 19. [Photo/pdtimes.com.cn]

New AI hub to welcome first batch of companies

The first batch of at least 15 Chinese and international companies have decided to set up offices in a new specialized artificial intelligence zone in Shanghai's Zhangjiang Science City. [Photo/IC]

The first batch of at least 15 Chinese and international companies have decided to set up offices in a new specialized artificial intelligence zone in Shanghai's Zhangjiang Science City, said Yuan Tao, chairman of Shanghai Zhangjiang Group, the operator of the zone.

The pioneer batch of companies include global organizations and local startup firms such as Microsoft, Alibaba, CloudWalk Technology and a research facility affiliated to Tongji University.

Known as the AIsland, the zone is also in talks with another five companies that are considering whether to take advantage of the park's economies of scale.

Yuan said that the profile of these companies would help AIsland achieve its goal of becoming a "pioneering area that leads the national AI pack" by the end of this year.

Covering 66,000 square meters, AIsland is presently home to 31 AI applications such as security and protection, voice recognition and deep learning, which are powered by a pilot fifth-generation mobile network. It is also part of the government's first slate of measures to bolster the development of AI in the city.

Foreign investment in Shanghai a sign of opening-up success

A signing ceremony of foreign-backed projects was held in Shanghai on Saturday, where 23.4 billion yuan (US$3.36 billion) in foreign investment was announced.  

Shanghai announced a batch of foreign investments totaling 23.4 billion yuan (US$3.36 billion) on Saturday, a reflection of foreign investors' confidence in the city and its lasting attraction for foreign investment.

The projects included 1 billion yuan from SAIC and GM to set up a financing and car rental company in the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone, which will run car rental business to raise capital.

Decathlon, an industry leader from France, will step up investment, pledging as much as 1 billion yuan to build headquarters for its sports equipment branch in Shanghai.

German headquartered SAF-Holland GmbH, the biggest manufacturer of components and parts for commercial vehicles worldwide, will invest 208 million yuan to set up regional headquarters in Shanghai.

Omron will increase its investment by 70 million yuan to found a second plant, which will function to enhance its production of sensors. According to its plan, by 2020 it will be able to produce 1.7 million sensors per month, doubling its production of 2017.

Takeda Chemical Industries, the biggest pharmaceutical company of Japan, will further invest 809 million yuan in Shanghai to realize its five-year project to launch more than 7 new medicines in China, covering areas such as tumors, digestion and neuroscience.

NEXTEV Co Ltd will step up 16.66 billion yuan to expand its R&D expenditure in electrification, intelligent connection and lightweighting.

Other industrial giants like Kao, Lego and ASUS will also increase their investments in Shanghai.

"This on the one hand shows that foreign enterprises are committed to Shanghai, and on the other hand it indicates Shanghai’s determination to deepen opening-up has worked," said Shanghai Vice Mayor Wu Qing.

More foreign investment

In the period from January to September 2018, Shanghai has attracted more and more foreign investment, with the number of projects, contractual foreign investment and actual foreign investment all growing from the same period last year.

A total of 3,704 new foreign-funded projects were set up in the city in the first nine months, up by 17.8 percent year on year. Contractual foreign capital (including capital increment) rose 20.4 percent to US$33.62 billion, and actual foreign investment reached US$12.94 billion, up 2.1 percent from a year earlier.

By the end of September 2018, the city had introduced 95,100 foreign investment projects with contractual foreign investment of US$457.85 billion and actual foreign investment of US$236.08 billion.

Of note, the structure of foreign investment has been upgraded and optimized, with 3,592 newly-launched projects in the service sector bringing US$11.54 billion, accounting for 89.2 percent of total actual foreign investment.

Also, Shanghai remained the city with the largest number of regional headquarters for multinational enterprises in China. By the end of September this year, 653 regional headquarters of multinational corporations had been introduced, including 79 Asia-Pacific headquarters, 358 investment companies and 438 research and development centers.

The Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone has also achieved substantial growth in introduction of foreign capital. From January to September, the total amount of foreign investment there reached US$5.03 billion, with a year-on-year increase of 16.8 percent, and its proportion of total foreign investment in the city rose to 38.9 percent.

Source: SHINE   Editor: Shen Ke