​Jinan to host World Advanced Manufacturing Conference

The first World Advanced Manufacturing Conference will be held in Jinan from Aug 23 to 26. Experts, major figures, as well as representatives of institutions and companies from home and abroad will be invited to discuss the future of the advanced manufacturing industry.

Jinan, which is the capital of Shandong province, was chosen as the host city for the international conference for many reasons. The city has a strong industrial foundation and is one of the cities with complete categories of the manufacturing industry in China.

To date, the city's manufacturing sector accounted for more than 90 percent of all its industries. Advanced manufacturing accounted for more than 57 percent of Jinan's manufacturing industry, while the output value of high-tech industries accounted for 55.3 percent of its industries above designated size.

The scale of the city's smart manufacturing and high-end equipment industry, as well as the big data and new generation of information technology industry have both exceeded 400 billion yuan ($61.71 billion).

Jinan has developed a batch of leading industries and companies focusing on high-end heavy trucks, numerically-controlled machine tools, electronic equipment, computer equipment, fine steel, as well as biological medicine.

Sinotruk tops China in exporting high-end heavy trucks. Inspur leads China's internet market in servers. Bloomage Biotech ranks first in the world for hyaluronic acid market share.

The city's R&D capacity has been continuously enhanced. Jinan now has one industrial innovation center at the national level, 985 R&D platforms at or above the provincial level, as well as 51 overseas technological R&D enterprises.

Jinan also has made great breakthroughs in digital economy, said Ji Peide, director of the Jinan municipal bureau of industry and information technology. The scale of digital economy accounted for 42 percent of its GDP.

It has developed its information technological equipment, high-end software, supercomputer, artificial intelligence, blockchain, and smart city construction industries.

According to Ji, Jinan will build 37 industrial chains and 40 industrial clusters focusing on emerging industries. A supporting fund worth 3 billion has been released to bolster advanced manufacturing development.