With the great Mount Tai standing in the south, the Yellow River Plain stretching to the north, these high mountains, wide plain and grand sea endow Shandong people with the virtue of benevolence, and gave birth to the greatest sage, Confucius.

History and Culture

Geographic Location
Shandong is a coastal province in Eastern China with a total area of 157.1 thousand square kilometers. It borders the Yellow Sea and Bohai Sea in the east, connects the vast inland plain in the west, links southern provinces as Zhejiang and Shanghai and northern cities as Beijing, Tianjin and Tanggu, and overlooks Japan and Korea across a narrow stretch of sea.

Climate Condition

Shandong is located in a warm temperate monsoon climate zone, with an annual average temperature of 11-14 degree centigrade and an average precipitation of 680-950 mm.

Natural Resources

Shandong is an important base for resources and energy of China: among the 150-odd categories of mineral resources found here, 58 are among top ten in the country in terms of reserve; Shengli Oilfield is the second largest in China; and Yanzhou Coal Mine is one the ten coal reserve bases of the country.  Shandong also has abundant ecological resources: there is great number of animal varieties, more than 3100 types of plant grow in the province, and its coastal line is over 3024 kilometers.

According to the general principal of building a harmonious socialist society and guided by the scientific out- look on development, Shandong has taken great efforts to promote adjustment of economic structure and transformati- on of development pattern in recent years, and thus gained rapid growth of national economy. In the year of 2007, the GDP of the province reached 2.59 trillion Yuan, ranking the 2nd in the country and keeping a two-digit growth rate for 17 years in a row.

Agriculture
Shandong is an important base of grain, cotton, and oil as well as aquatic product, fruit, livestock product, and vegetable. It takes an early start in agricultural industrializa- tion and enjoys fast development, and is home to some leading companies, e.g., Longda, Fengxiang, Meijia, and etc.

General Industry and Construction Industry
Shandong has good industrial infrastructure and comp- -lete varieties. The six pillar industries – electronic informa-

-tion and home appliance, mechanical equipment, chemical industry, food, textile, and new materials grow very fast, and the hi-tech industries as bio-technology and pharmacy, envi- -ronment protection, energy saving and emission reduction have developed into a relatively complete system. The outp- ut of 47 industrial products rank the first all over the coun-

try, e.g. household refrigerator, freezer, agricultural machin- ery, industrial machinery, heavy-duty truck, light motorcy- cle, machine-made paper and paper board, fertilizer, tire, ce- ment, edible vegetable oil, gauze, cloth, architectural ceramics, gold, etc. Shandong has a number of world well-known companies like Haier, Hisense, Qingdao Beer, Changyu Wine, Langchao Group, Dongyue Auto, and Sinotruck.

Service Sector

Finance and Insurance: There are 187 banking institutions in Shandong, and 9 of them are foreign funded banks or represent- ative offices. 41 national insurance companies have set their offices in Shandong. There are 117 professional insurance agencies.

Storage and Logistics: Over three thousand companies in Shandong are engaged in logistics, including large companies of China and foreign countries, e.g. China National Materials Storage and Transportation Corporation and COSCO Group, and foreign companies like Maersk Logistics of Denmark, ITOCHU Corporation of Japan, Hanjin Shipping of South Korea, and Singamas of Singapore.
Commercial Service: The total volume of retail sales of social consumption goods reached 843.879 billion Yuan in 2007, up 18.5% over the previous year, and 446 markets got a 100 million Yuan turnover each year. 234 sole foreign-funded wholesale and retail companies have been approved to set offices in Shandong. At present, the province has 465 accounting firms and 767 lawyer’s offices.
Software: There are two State-level and four provincial-level software parks, among which, Qilu Software Park is one of the 11 flagship software bases of the country and the national software exportation base, and Qingdao Software Park is China torch program software technology development base. Among Shandong’s local software companies, three are in the list of 30 largest independent software vendors, and eight are among the top 100 software companies. Jinan city is granted the name of “National Base of Service Outsourcing”.
Tourism: Due to its beautiful landscape and numerous cultural relics, Shandong has thousands of tourist resorts, and 213 of them are Class A. For example, Mount Tai - “World Natural Heritage”, Qufu – Confucius hometown and “World Cultural Heritage”, Penglai – fairyland on earth, Laoshan mountain – holy place of Taoism, Rizhao – city of aquatic sports, Weifang – city of kite, Qingdao – international beer city, Yantai – international wine city, and Jinan – city of springs.

Opening up to the Outside World

import & export of Shandong in 2007 was USD 122.62 billion; USD 75.24 billion was for exports and USD 47.37 billion for import. The top ten exporting goods are machinery and equipment, electrical appliance and electronic products, clothing, textile, steel, tire, aquatic products, game player, vegetable, and telephone set; the top ten importing goods are electric appliance and electronic product, machinery and equipment, iron ore, product oil, plastic raw material, computer and communication technology, soybean, frozen fish and fish fillet, textile, and instrument and meter.
Foreign Investment: By the end of 2007, companies from over 130 countries and districts have invested in Shandong. South Korea, Hong Kong, USA, Japan, British Virgin Islands, and Taiwan are the first six regions which invest most. Most investments go to manufacturing industry. 130 of the Fortune Global 500 companies have set their presence in Shandong, e.g. GM, Lucent, HP, Mitsubishi, Mitsui, ITOCHU, Shell oil, Unilever, Siemens, METRO, Peugeot, Arcelor, Nestle, Daewoo, Samsung, etc.
Contracting overseas projects and labour service cooperation: By the end of 2007, the accumulated contractual value of contracting foreign engineering projects has reached USD 19.64 billion, the business turnover was USD 13.33 billion, and the contracted projects belong to over 130 countries and districts covering construction, transporta- tion, and power. Labours are mainly dispatched to Japan, South Korea, and Singapore engaging in construction, transp- ortation, machinery and electronics, agriculture and aquatic industry, textile and clothing, food processing, software, etc.
Investment in Foreign Countries: 1480 companies have been approved to develop companies (agencies) in 110 fore- ign countries and districts by the end of 2007, with a total contractual investment amount of USD 2.5 billion. The inves-tment mainly goes to home appliance, textile and clothing, mining, wood, machinery, chemical industry, and construc- tion materials. 3 national level overseas joint economic zones have been developed, and they are Haier-Ruba Economic Zone in Pakistan, Cua economic zone in Venezuela invested by Langchao Group and the timber industrial park in Russia invested by Yantai Northwest Forestry Co., Ltd.
Sister Relations: Shandong has had sister relations with more than 130 provinces, states and cities of foreign countries.

Being so close to Confucianism, Shandong people are honest, appreciating study, generous, and credit-worthy, and the society take on a stable, harmonious, prosperous, and culturally and scientifically advanced outlook.

Science, Technology and Education
There are 111 colleges and universities in Shandong with 1440.4 thousand students, Shandong University, China Ocean University, and China Petroleum University for instance;

there are 782 secondary vocational schools with 1215 thousand stud- ents; 257 technical schools with 360 thousand students; 4039 ordinary secondary schools with 5203 thousand students. The nine-year compulsory education has been popularized in Shan- dong. 36 academicians of China Academy of Science and China Academy of Engineering, and 73 thousand specialized technical people are based in Shandong. There are 97 provincial-level sci- e ntific research institutions. Shandong takes the lead in agricul- ture technology and oceanic science. In the year of 2007, Shan- d ong gained 2346 important scientific and technological results , among which 22 got national awards. Also in 2007, the prov- ince submitted 46849 applications for patent and 22821 were approved.

Medical Service and Health Care
A public health care system has been basically completed in the province. There are 18 thousand health care institutions, among which 2402 are hospitals and health centers, 178 epidemic prevention stations, and 150 health care agencies special for women and children. The total amount of beds is 271,000. 147 thousand doctors and 104 thousand nurses have vocational qualifications.

Social Security
The number of urban citizens who has got pension insurance, medical care and unemployment, occupational injury, and maternity was 11.749 million, 11.135 million, 8.149 million, 7.451 million, and 5.633 million respectively. Preliminary success has been made in the development of new pension insurance and cooperative medical service system in rural areas; and now 10.68 million farmers have got the insurances, 560 thousand have got their pension, and 60.0257 million have enjoyed the cooperative medical services. Minimum social security systems both in urban and rural areas, urban medical aid system and rural medical aid system have been well developed.
Living Environment
Shandong has picturesque scenery, well-established public facilities, public service system and creation equipments, and Shandong people are honest and kind. Weihai city is honored the most livable city and was 2003 UN-HABITAT Scroll of Honour Award Winner. 12 cities of the province are national sanitary cities.

Shandong enjoys good infrastructure, developed matching industry chains, abundant human resources, high-quality labours, great market potentials, and satisfying government services.
Infrastructure
Railway: Shandong is located in a very important hinge connecting China’s northern and southern part in the east. The railway length is over 3000 kilometers. Jinan is the important transit station.

Road: Highways have connected all the 17 cities of Shandong. The mileage of road open to traffic is 212.2

thousand km including 4033 km expressway. Both the mileage and road quality are among the best in China.

Aviation: There are 7 cargo and passenger airports in the prov- ince, with over 300 air routes and 21 of them are international ones to Japan, South Korea, France, Russia, Hong Kong and Macao. Jinan, Qingdao, Yantai and Weihai have international airport.
Port: There are 351 berths in operation, including 147 deep-water berths of 100,000 tons and up with throughput of 575 million tons and sea routes to more than 140 countries and regions. The annual throughput of Qingdao Port is 265 million tons and container handling capacity has crossed the mark of 9 million TEUs, lifting it to top ten container ports of the world and turning it to the shipping center of Northeast Asia. Rizhao Port has an annual throughput of 131 million tons.
Communication:  By the end of 2007, the rate of population with access to telephone and mobile phone has been reached 28.2% and 40% respectively, and the network of telephone and mobile phone has covered every corner of cities, towns, counties, and villages.

Internet: There are 3.5 million users of internet now in Shand- ong. People everywhere in the province are able to have access to internet through telephone line, private line, or broadband.

Power:  Power supply is sufficient, installed capacity hitting 55400 megawatt.

Human Resources
Shandong has abundant human resources. Each year, nearly 300 thousand students graduate from colleges and

universities, 300 thousand from secondary vocational schools, and 80 thousand from technical schools. 150 thousand are senior technicians.
Market Potential
The fixed assets investment above designated size in 2007 was RMB 1253.702 billion Yuan, an increase of 24.2% than the previous year; total retail sales of consumer goods was 843.879 billion Yuan, 18.5% up; the average disposable income of urban residents was 14264.7 Yuan; and the average net income of farmers was 4985.34 Yuan. Shandong is an important commodity distributing center in Northern China, radiating districts of adjacent provinces, and becomes a big market serving 150 million people.
Government Service
Related departments and organizations of all levels of government have set administrative service center to provide “one stop” services for economic and trade cooperation.
Some coastal cities, Qingdao, Yantai and Weihai for instance, opened schools special for children of foreigners, and government of other places also issued preferential policies for the schooling of children of foreigners.

　　Focusing on:

　　　　electronic information and home appliance
　　　　Machinery industry  
　　　　Chemical industry  
　　　　Food industry

Textile and clothing       
Biotechnology and new materials
● Special efforts shall be made in developing industries of automobiles and car parts, ship making and marine equipment, various large-scale equipment, digital-controlled machinery tool, engineering machinery, environmental-protection machinery, and agricultural machinery;
● Speed up development of hi-tech industry, and improve traditional industries in terms of paper making, cement, fertilizer and tire;
● Strengthen financial insurance, modern logistics, information service, international service outsourcing and tourism sectors;
●Continue to improve construction of ports, railway, road, power station and infrastructure;
● Accelerate agricultural modernization;
●Encourage multinationals to set regional headquarters, R&D center, purchasing center, operation center and training center in the province;

● Support foreign investors introducing advanced, suitable and effective energy-saving and emission-reduction technologies and give priority to investing on energy-saving projects.

● Encourage foreign investors to take part in SOE reorganization and reform.

With the goal to realize scientific, harmonious and leading development, in 2007 Shandong CPC Committee and government initiate the “One Axis and Two Wings” regional development pattern. “One Axis” is composed by the peninsula city cluster and surrounding-capital city economic circle; “Two Wings” refers to the northern wing of Yellow River Delta and the southern wing of the economic belt in southern part of Shandong. The “One Axis” will optimize structure, develop modern industrial structure, improve competence and make the province more open; places in the “Two Wings” area shall be given priority for development, focus on opening up to the outside world, expand opening areas, develop high-efficient ecological economy, and cultivate industries with distinctive features.
Shandong will endeavor to create a more fair and transparent administrative environment, a fair and orderly development environment and a warm and hospitable service environment. It will continue to put into practice the scientific outlook on development, realize regional coordinated and sustainable development, and build a harmonious society. 93 million Shandong people, being future oriented, are looking forward to joining hands with friends from all over the world to build a better international home.