(Yicai Global) Sep. 13 -- Pudong New Area, the special economic zone of Shanghai aiming to be a leader of China’s reform and opening-up, will issue a series of measures to attract specialized service providers from around the world to settle in Lujiazui Financial City in Pudong, according to a local official.

The measures include giving foreign companies national treatment, Yuan Yefeng, deputy director of the Lujiazui Financial and Trade Zone Management Committee, said at a meeting to promote the new policy on Sept. 10.

The local government will gradually lift restrictions on the employment of foreign talent in professional fields and treat them as nationals when working in fully competed industries in Pudong, he said, adding that the area will also draw up a list of recognized international professional qualifications.

Shanghai’s Free Trade Zone is currently the only place in the country where a China-foreign joint venture law firm can be set up to provide Chinese clients with more sophisticated services and win customers in more areas.

A JV law firm in the FTZ has served about 200 Chinese firms and notched up compound annual revenue growth of over 60 percent, Yuan noted, without revealing the firm’s name.

Luther, a leading German law firm, has been planning to set up a Shanghai office since March, Oliver Maaz, a partner at the firm, said at the meeting. “Our clients are multinational companies who have been investing in China for decades,” he said.

“They have collaborated with Chinese professionals and have dispatched their own experts to China,” Maas said. “In this regard, there have been long-term connections between Germany and China, and we will try to further contribute to the success.”

Corporate clients of Luther, such as well-known German logistics service provider Hoyer Group, compressor maker Kaeser and material testing firm Zwich Roell, joined the meeting by video link. These companies have entered the Chinese market and hope to invest further.

China issued a guideline to support high-level reform and opening-up of the Pudong New Area in July. The area will expand openness from the factory level to the system level, and take the lead in establishing a new system for an open economy that is compatible with prevailing international rules, according to the guideline.

Editor: Peter Thomas