At the same time, Travelex, the largest foreign exchange specialist, has established its Asia headquarters in the FTZ after being granted to license a cross-border transfer and wholesale business of foreign currencies by the State Administration of Foreign Exchange. The new headquarters will enhance its business in neighboring countries, such as Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Japan and regions including Hong Kong.

"China's further opening-up in the financial sector has made us think that the future (business) focus will be in China," said Cameron Hume, managing director (Asia) and chief executive officer (China) of Travelex.

The FTZ has become an engine of the city's economic growth. It covers 2 percent of the city's total area but creates 25 percent of Shanghai's gross domestic product and 40 percent of the city's trade.

The FTZ, with an area of 120 square kilometers, generated 42.9 percent of the total import and export of the city in the first 10 months.

The total import and export in the first 10 months in the FTZ has reached 1.21 trillion yuan (US$176 billion), up by 5.8 percent year on year.

In 2017, the FTZ achieved a newly-added actual foreign capital of US$6 billion, which is the highest among all 11 FTZs throughout the country.

The FTZ has also achieved substantial growth in the introduction of foreign capital from January to September. The total amount of foreign investment during the peiod hit 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.

Foreign investments were mainly in strategic emerging industries including mobile Internet, biomedicine, medical equipment, information technology, Internet of Things and high-end manufacturing.

Latest foreign investment projects included 1 billion yuan from SAIC Motor and General Motors to set up a financing and car rental company in the FTZ, which will run a car rental business to raise capital.

The FTZ has also attracted more than 600 cultural enterprises and organized more than 40 exhibitions and activities on overseas culture per year on average.