Step by step : company establishment in the Shanghai Free Trade Zone

The new Shanghai Free Trade Zone (FTZ) offers attractive opportunities for foreign investors to establish a company there. And according to the numbers, a lot of them already have. The lower requirements and less restrictive approval procedures played their part in establishing this trend. The application process for establishing a company in the FTZ can be dealt with quickly, and here are the main information that you have to keep in mind.

First thing you must know, the FTZ has a negative list approach to foreign investment. This means that foreign investment projects on the Negative List are subject to pre-approval procedures while those who are not on the list need only to go through the record-filing procedures. For those who are not listed this basically turns down the involvement of the Ministry of Commerce and the State Administration for Industry and Commerce.

The second important novelty is the "one-stop application processing platform" : all applications will be treated through the authorities in the Zone. This shall save a lot of time and travels for foreign investors wishing to establish a company in the FTZ.

Here are the various steps for company registration in the FTZ.