Shandong builds new highland for opening up

Building a Sino-foreign cooperation platform and a highland for opening up

Shandong is determined to dig deeper into its geographical advantages, build a platform for Sino-foreign cooperation and help create new heights of opening-up.

As one of the regions with the most intensive investment from Japan and South Korea, Shandong has continuously expanded its two-way exchange and cooperation platform.

Shandong has enhanced the level of industrial development by cooperating with Japan and South Korea and in turn, Japan and South Korea have also used Shandong to connect with China's vast market.

This year, Shandong will take the construction of the China-Japan-Korea Regional Economic Cooperation Demonstration Zone as a carrier to strengthen trade and investment cooperation with Japan, as well as consolidate and upgrade the China-South Korea (Yantai) Industrial Park and the Weihai China-South Korea Free Trade Zone Regional Economic Cooperation Demonstration Zone.

Weihai Mayor Zhang Haibo said that Weihai has made arrangements in many aspects, such as promoting the "four-port linkage" of Weihai Port, Weihai Airport, and South Korea's Incheon Port and Incheon Airport.

In order to gather resources on a larger scale, Shandong has proposed to actively build-up the China (Shandong) Free Trade Experimental Zone.

In this regard, Zhang Shuping, secretary of the Yantai Municipal Party Committee, said that the construction of the free trade zone is highly professional, and Shandong should strengthen its overall planning to make the construction of the free trade zone more innovative.

In the past two years, Shandong has made remarkable progress in building a regional international cooperation platform.

In September last year, the construction of the China-SCO Regional Economic and Trade Cooperation Demonstration Zone was officially launched in Qingdao, and 26 projects with a total investment of 43.7 billion yuan ($6.5 billion) started construction, helping Qingdao become an important "seaport" for the Asia-Pacific market. 

Shandong has fully opened up the "big market", built a "big platform" for cooperation with Japan and South Korea, and opened up a "big channel" for connectivity and mutual benefits.

New ideas have drawn new patterns and called for new actions. Shandong's "road map" for expanding and opening up is being transformed into "construction plan" and" schedule". A new highland opening to the outside world is in the rise in Shandong.

BP opens its first branded station in Shandong on Jan 29, 2019. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]