Enthusiasm for starting a business among residents of Shanghai has been a defining quality of the city over the past decade, especially in Pudong New Area, according to a recent report by the Shanghai Employment Promotion Center.

The report shows that in 2018, pioneering enterprises in Shanghai created an average of 8.8 jobs, 1.2 jobs more than 10 years ago, and roughly 60 percent of the new jobs in the city are coming from startups.

In the same year, opportunity-driven entrepreneurship accounted for 88.2 percent of the total number.

Unlike necessity-push entrepreneurship, opportunity-driven entrepreneurs desire to realize personal values or meet the demands of knowledge and capital intensive industries.

According to the report, what entrepreneurs need most are tax breaks and subsidies.

Dai Wei, a Pudong New Area native and entrepreneur who left a state-owned enterprise to found a jewelry studio 10 years ago, has a personal understanding of the survey results.

He said that he encountered numerous difficulties during the initial stages of his career, mostly relating to financial and market difficulties.

Fortunately, he said that the sub-district where his studio is located offered him rent subsidies and helped him establish another studio in Lujiazui, a financial district in Shanghai.

In recent years, Shanghai has been rolling out a series of policies to tackle the problems faced by entrepreneurs during their initial stages of pioneering, including discount interest on secured loans and subsidies for rent, social insurance, and related trainings.