Dongshan Xiaolu｜Leaders of multinational companies gathered in Qingdao! Three keywords to see why Shandong's "circle of friends" is getting bigger and bigger
2024-08-27
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Qilu.com·Lightning News, August 27: Good winds and green curtains. In the past two days, Qingdao, Shandong Province has ushered in its highlight moment again - the fifth Qingdao Summit of Multinational Corporation Leaders was held here as scheduled.
According to previously published data, the number of global CEOs attending the Qingdao Summit of Multinational Corporations this year is the highest in history. In addition, as of now, nearly 500 multinational corporate guests have confirmed their attendance, including 95 "new partners" who have not participated in the previous four summits, accounting for 20% of the total.
The Qingdao Summit of Multinational Corporation Leaders has been held for the fifth time. Old friends have become more and more close, and there are more and more new friends. Many people would ask, why is Shandong's "circle of friends" getting bigger and bigger?
From August 27 to 29, the 5th Qingdao Summit of Multinational Corporation Leaders was held in Qingdao, Shandong. Source: Visual China
“Bridge”: The unique charm of the crossroads of the Belt and Road Initiative
"From the perspective of the hinterland, Shandong may be a nerve ending, but from the perspective of Japan, South Korea and the world, Shandong is the forefront of the new round of reform and opening up." Bai Ming, a member of the Academic Degree Committee and a researcher at the Ministry of Commerce Research Institute, once commented on the geopolitical pattern of Shandong's opening up to the outside world. Especially with the blessing of the Yellow River Basin ecological protection and high-quality development strategy, Shandong, as the only province located in the east and the only province along the Yellow River and the coast among the nine provinces along the Yellow River, has obtained a rare historical opportunity.
Cao Tingqiu, former dean of the School of Economics at Shandong University, believes that the Yellow River strategy provides a broader space and stage for Shandong's development. Going west along the Yellow River, it can form a huge strategic depth; going east, it can further deepen cooperation with Japan and South Korea. Shandong should be positioned in the concept of the Yellow River Basin, the whole country, and East Asia, and use regional, national, and East Asian thinking to plan the overall development.
It is no wonder that last year the State Council agreed in principle to the "Shandong Provincial Land and Space Planning (2021-2035)", which clearly defines Shandong's positioning as: promoting the linkage between the north and the south, and the coordination of land and sea between the east and the west, and an important hub connecting Northeast Asia and the "Belt and Road Initiative". It is a strategic fulcrum for economic development in my country's northern region and an important industrial base.
Under this macro-positioning, a set of data can be used to analyze that Shandong is building a "golden channel" for trade logistics that connects Japan and South Korea in the east, Europe and Asia in the west, radiates Southeast Asia, and drives the whole country. Taking Shandong Port Group Co., Ltd., which integrates the four major port groups of Qingdao Port, Yantai Port, Rizhao Port and Bohai Bay Port, as an example, its annual throughput is as high as 1.4 billion tons, among which Qingdao Port, Yantai Port and Rizhao Port are among the top ten coastal ports in the country, and Shandong Port Group has become the port group with the largest throughput in the world. In the first five months of this year, Shandong realized imports and exports of 1.32 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.6%. Among them, exports increased by 11.6%, a growth rate 5.5 percentage points higher than the national average; the province actually used 6.33 billion US dollars in foreign capital, an increase higher than the national average, and the main indicators of the export-oriented economy have achieved steady improvement.
Lin Yutang, president of the China-ASEAN Business Association and chairman and president of Malaysia's Farin Group Co., Ltd., once said: "Shandong is a springboard for ASEAN business circles to enter the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and the Northwest."
“Chain”: From supply chain, industrial chain to the new ecology of value chain
Today, the global environment is facing great changes, great opportunities and great challenges, but global open cooperation is the eternal theme, and companies around the world must continue to grow through "competition and cooperation."
Shandong has all 41 major industrial categories, and the output of more than 100 key products ranks among the top three in the country. In the list of the eighth batch of national manufacturing single champion enterprises announced by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology this year, Shandong ranked first in the country with 238 manufacturing single champion enterprises, which showed the core competitiveness of Shandong's manufacturing industry. Since the 14th Five-Year Plan, Shandong Province's GDP has continuously reached two trillion yuan, with an average annual growth of 6% in three years, exceeding the national average. Last year's GDP reached 9.2 trillion yuan, ranking third in the country.
Whether it is the supply chain or the industrial chain, Shandong's more than 14 million market entities can enable multinational companies to build a new value chain ecosystem that meets their own development needs.
Take Shandong Heavy Industry Group, the "chain leader" of Shandong's equipment manufacturing industry, for example. In November last year, they signed strategic cooperation agreements with well-known overseas companies such as Bosch of Germany, Orix of Japan, Truong Hai of Vietnam, BASF of Germany, Corning of the United States, and Tenneco of the United States. For example, Bosch Group of Germany is a world-leading supplier of automotive and intelligent transportation technology. Its chairman of the board, Hartung, said: "We have cooperated with Weichai Group for more than 20 years, and there is huge room for cooperation in promoting the development of a green and low-carbon economy."
CJ Group, a global lifestyle and cultural enterprise from South Korea, has invested in Liaocheng factory 10 times, increased capital in Qingdao factory 13 times, and invested 8.5 billion yuan in Shandong. Some analysts believe that Shandong's strong industrial base in food processing, biotechnology, logistics and transportation is deeply compatible with CJ Group's global lifestyle and cultural business, providing unique conditions for the company's localized production, R&D and sales.
In the first half of this year, fixed asset investment in Shandong Province increased by 4.9%, of which investment in the "four new" economy increased by 8.9%, accounting for 57.7%, giving birth to a new blue ocean of green, low-carbon and high-quality development. The population size of both registered and permanent populations exceeded 100 million, and Shandong Province ranked third in the country in terms of social retail sales last year, demonstrating the huge consumption potential of this economically developed province.
"Win": A first-class business environment opens up the "last mile" of serving enterprises
If Shandong's regional advantages and industrial foundation are the "hardware" that attract multinational companies, then the continuously optimized business environment has become the "soft power" that attracts more and more companies to settle here.
In recent years, Shandong has actively connected with high-standard international economic and trade rules, implemented a number of measures to optimize the foreign investment environment, improved policy transparency and service levels, improved the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem, created a market-oriented, law-based, and internationalized business environment, and provided full-factor guarantees and full-cycle services, making Shandong a hot spot for multinational companies to invest and start businesses.
In the "Ten Thousand Private Enterprises Evaluate the Business Environment" activity organized by the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, Shandong was selected as one of the 10 provinces with the best business environment for two consecutive years; a survey conducted by the Shandong Provincial Survey Team of the National Bureau of Statistics on 727 enterprises in 16 cities across the province showed that 95.6% of the surveyed enterprises expressed satisfaction with the rule of law environment.
In 2023, Shandong will vigorously promote "getting things done efficiently", improve the regular communication system between provincial leaders and enterprises, continue to standardize administrative law enforcement involving enterprises, and the online handling rate of government services upon application will exceed 80%; the "Implementation Plan for Deepening Innovation and Improving the Business Environment in Shandong Province" was issued and implemented, and a series of measures such as the time limit completion mechanism and the release of a public number for entrepreneurs to directly connect with the Governor of Shandong Province will build a "last mile" to serve enterprises; Shandong has formulated and issued the "Shandong Province Regulations on Promoting the Development of the Private Economy", revised and implemented the "Shandong Province Regulations on Promoting Small and Medium-sized Enterprises", and implemented ten special actions for the high-quality development of the private economy year by year to encourage, support and guide the development of the private economy.
This series of visible and tangible concrete measures have contributed to the high-quality development of Shandong's economy. At the 5th Qingdao Summit of Multinational Corporation Leaders, many guests said that Shandong's changes are gratifying and the environment is satisfactory, and they are full of confidence in Shandong's future stable economic growth.
Lightning News reporter He Xiaofei reports
