International Trade and Investment Advisors for Shandong Province: A Promising Future for Promoting High-Level Opening-Up of Shandong

On the afternoon of December 21, Jinan witnessed the Conference of the International Trade and Investment Advisory Council for Shandong Province 2021. Attention has been focused on Shandong as it tries to enhance high-level opening-up and build itself into a new hub of opening-up to the outside world. 

Conference of the International Trade and Investment Advisory Council for Shandong Province 2021 [Photo by Huang Zhongming]

Shandong is close to Japan and South Korea and connects Europe and Asia. Relying on obvious geographical advantages and a prominent location, it has developed a complete range of transportation modes by sea, land and air, and sophisticated infrastructure featuring two-way complementarity from the east to the west and integration of sea-rail transport service. Shandong boasts great economic strength, balanced development of three industries with all 41 industrial categories, and a permanent population and registered population both of which have exceeded 100 million, which symbolizes huge market potential.

At present, Shandong has implemented a series of national strategies, such as replacing old growth drivers with new ones, ecological protection of the Yellow River basin and high-quality development. Besides, a variety of national platforms represented by the China (Shandong) Pilot Free Trade Zone and China-SCO Local Economic Cooperation Demonstration Zone have injected vitality into further development of Shandong.

Conference of the International Trade and Investment Advisory Council for Shandong Province 2021 [Photo by Huang Zhongming]

At the meeting, the advisors discussed about strengthening horizontal cooperation among enterprises, promoting cooperation and exchanges in the aging industry, building "ASEAN +3 (China, Japan and South Korea) Cooperation Demonstration Zone", improving cooperation in culture and tourism, fully integrating into and serving the overall context of national opening-up strategy, and smooth the "double circulation" node platform.