Photo taken on Sept. 8, 2015 shows an aerial view of one section of Huangpu River in east China's Shanghai Municipality. (Xinhua/Cheng Zixie)

A total of 701 multinational corporations have established regional headquarters in Shanghai by the end of August, according to the municipal commission of commerce.

Among them, 106 are headquarters for the Asia Pacific region, showing that the city is an important operation center for many multinational corporations both in China and the Asia Pacific, the commission said.

The number of foreign-funded research and development (R&D) centers reached 451 by the end of August, with 10 newly launched in the first eight months of this year, it added.

Driven by the prosperous development of these headquarters, foreign investment into Shanghai has maintained fast growth, with 4,661 new foreign investment projects set up from January to August, up 47.8 percent year on year.

Shanghai launched new policies last month to attract global enterprises, according to which the requirement for the total assets of parent companies of regional headquarters has been adjusted to 200 million U.S. dollars.

To further facilitate R&D, Shanghai also plans to add renowned foreign trademarks that are vulnerable to infringement to the city's key protection list, to provide better intellectual property protection services for the regional headquarters.