Domestic companies flock to register

Caution prevails

Meanwhile, foreign companies are treading more carefully, despite having potentially the most to gain, because the FTZ has introduced a so-called "negative list" to simplify procedures for their registration and operation, Kuai said. The list also outlines the obstacles foreign investors may face and the type of companies that are not allowed to operate there.

Chen said it was not yet clear how many foreign-funded businesses had registered in the first week, but that his center has been issuing licenses for them "since day one".

Dajiabao.com, an insurance company, was the first foreign-funded business to receive its license on Monday. The company's chief executive officer, Fang Yushu, said the company would move its core businesses to the FTZ in the hope that insurance regulators will release more supportive measures. The firm has a new entity there with a registered capital of $3 million from Hong Kong-based investors.

Neither e-commerce nor insurance firms are among the 190 business areas and industries marked as restricted on the "negative list".

The European Union Chamber of Commerce in China was quoted by economic observers recently as saying that the negative list is too long, and that it could take up to six months to evaluate feedback from foreign companies there.

About 90 percent of the content on the list already exists in the Catalogue for the Guidance of Foreign Investment Industries, the chamber added.

Wang Xinkui, director of the counselor's office, which operates under the Shanghai municipal government, admitted in a recent forum at the city's Fudan University that the first version of the "negative list" was "inadequate".

"It's to some extent a reprint of existing policies, because we lack experience in this area," he said. "It will be amended gradually to meet global standards."

"Maybe more detailed reforms will come out and the policy direction will become clearer after the Party's third plenary session in November," Kuai said.

Wang Ying in Shanghai contributed to this story.