FOREIGN businesses are confident of Shanghai's growth prospect and eager to engage in the city's various development strategies, participants said during a briefing by Shanghai's commerce affairs yesterday.

More than 500 people, including foreign diplomats, executives of foreign-invested companies in Shanghai and local government officials, attended the annual meeting hosted by the Shanghai Commission of Commerce.

"Shanghai will try to maintain a stable economic growth rate and accelerate the industrial restructuring to further raise the city's growth quality," Vice Mayor Zhou Bo told the gathering. "We sincerely hope foreign investors will continue to help us in the process."