San Francisco, Jul 25 (IANS): Facebook has set up a subsidiary in China to build an "innovation hub" focused on helping local developers and entrepreneurs to innovate and grow, the media reported.

Facebook's application for the China subsidiary in the Zhejiang province was approved on July 18, CNBC reported on Tuesday citing a filing with the country's National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System.

"We are interested in setting up an innovation hub in Zhejiang to support Chinese developers, innovators and start-ups," a Facebook spokesperson was quoted as saying.

According to a report in Mashable, the subsidiary is entirely owned by Facebook, meaning it did not have to partner with popular Chinese social media sites Weibo or WeChat to get approval.

Facebook has similar hubs in other countries including India, France and Brazil.

As China strictly censors foreign social media and search engines, Facebook's website remains banned in the country. Contents from Google and Twitter also remain blocked in the country.

These strict rules have forced US tech giants to explore new ways to enter the big Chinese market.

Google, which has hundreds of people working in China, recently launched its Artificial Intelligence (AI) lab in the country.