3M, one of Fortune global top 500, announced on August 24 an investment of 40 million US dollars to set up a world-class R&D center in Shanghai, designed to be an technology "incubator" of the company.

The center, located in Caohejing new technology park, will be completed and put into operation in next May, said Yu Junxiong, who is in charge of 3M's China division. The new center in China will serve as an important platform for the company's technological innovation on global scale, next only to those in US headquarters and Japan.

Innovation is an important driving force of 3M's sustainable development in China or even the world. Establishment of the Shanghai center marks a new sphere of the company's development in China, which will become an important R&D base of 3M in China or even the Asia-Pacific as a whole, said 3M vice-president Dr. Jay Ihlenfeld. Currently, 3M has a 180-member local research team in China, and the number will double by the year 2007.

Attending the foundation-laying ceremony, Shanghai deputy mayor Zhou Yupeng recalled that 3M's China corporation registered in Shanghai in 1984, being the first solely foreign-funded enterprise in China outside special economic zones as well as the first solely foreign-funded enterprise approved by Shanghai foreign investment authority. By the end of last July, he revealed, altogether 111 transnational companies had settled their regional headquarters in Shanghai, plus 120 investment companies and 158 R&D centers.

By People's Daily Online