Baxter entered China in the 1980s and was one of the first large multinational companies to enter the Chinese medical market. Shanghai is the headquarters of Baxter China. Other offices are located in 9 cities including Beijing, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Nanjing, and Tianjin. Baxter China has also established 5 large-scale joint ventures and wholly-owned factories in Shanghai, Suzhou, Guangzhou, and Tianjin, with a total of nearly 2,000 formal employees.