????According to the statistical data issued by the Qingdao Municipal Bureau of Commerce last week, in 2016 Qingdao has signed agreements on establishing 29 foreign-funded projects with many Fortune Global 500 enterprises including Germany Volkswagen, Siemens, Bombardier, Amazon, Continental, Mapfre Group and Goldman Sachs, and the involving foreign investment amounts to 1.36 billion USD, ranking the 1st in Shandong Province.

????The perfection of funds attraction means including merger and acquisition, joint stock and equity contribution provides Fortune Global 500 enterprises more opportunities to participate in the reshuffle and restructure of Qingdao traditional enterprises. KKR, a world-renowned private equity investment organization, made a strategic investment to Haier Group and 0.518 billion USD of foreign capital has been actually utilized. Alibaba has increased its capital share and acquired Ri Ri Shun Logistics previously under the umbrella of Haier and 0.25 billion USD foreign capital has been utilized. The Qingdao Port Group and Qingdao Bank have been successfully listed in Hong Kong and raised funds of over 1 billion USD.

????The construction of the Qingdao Wealth Management Experimental Plot will open up brand new investment opportunities for the Fortune Global 500 enterprises. In 2016, Qingdao Yicai Wealth Management Co., Ltd., the first totally foreign-funded wealth management company in China and Qingdao Nuoya Insurance Agency Co., Ltd., the first foreign-funded insurance agency project in Shandong Province, settled down in Qingdao. Only last year Qingdao newly approved 24 foreign-funded lease finance companies, involving the contractual foreign funds of 0.534 billion USD.

????In 2016, the successful introduction of automobile fluid technology research and development production project of Germany Continental Group made Qingdao become the ContiTech Asia Pacific Automobile Fluid Technology and Rubber Hose Assembly Manufacturing Base. The rapid progress of the FAW-Volkswagen project has resulted in a powerful leading and demonstrative role for the development of the Qingdao auto industry. Siemens has set up the only R&D innovation center in Qingdao with an independent legal entity and the core theme of “Intelligent Manufacturing” outside Germany. In addition, the Qingdao-HP Software global big data and Amazon incubator are all innovation of traditional investment modes and paths and will provide effective support for Qingdao economic structural transformation and upgrade, promote high-end marine manufacturing and “three centers and one base”.

????A large batch of well-run and steadily developed Qingdao branded enterprises became important carriers to attract Fortune Global 500 to make investments.

????In 2016, Airbus constructed its first H135 helicopter assembly line outside Europe in Qingdao because there are a batch of outstanding partners including Qingdao Huatong Group and Qingdao Tourism Group. mPrest from Israel chose to cooperate with the Hisense Group engaging in the smart city field for many years to promote globally smart city solutions and jointly develop the cloud platform of internet of things. Japan Toray Group and Qingdao Jifa Group cooperatively exploiting the Chinese domestic market of dialysis machine and apparatus, Canada Bombardier and Qingdao Doright Railway Equipment Co., Ltd jointly conducting monorail transport system research, development and manufacturing are all successful typical cases for the win-win cooperation between large enterprises overseas and Qingdao enterprises.

????By leveraging transnational corporations, Qingdao enterprises could “with zero distance” learn about the globally advanced production technology and management experience to participate deeply in international competition and global industrial division, enhance the capability of allocating resources globally and speed up the elevation to medium and high end of the industrial value chains.

????Nowadays Qingdao is the most densely invested area by the Fortune Global 500. According to the statistics, so far 133 Global 500 enterprises have set up 261 projects in Qingdao including Volkswagen, Amazon, Ericsson, Nestle, HSBC, Dupont, Caterpillar, Shell and Total and ranging from traditional industries including petrol chemical engineering, textile and garment, food and beverage to emerging industries such as modern manufacturing, electronic technology, new energy, energy conservation and environment protection.

????(Photo：HP Software Global Big Data Application Research and Industrialization Demonstration Base, located in the West Coast New Zone, Qingdao, is under construction. The project involves the total investment of 22 billion Yuan.)

????Qingdao is pushing forward “Standardization+” with steady steps

????The Qingdao Municipal Standardization Development Program (2016-2020) was issued last week.

????According to the program, by 2020 Qingdao will newly undertake 5 international and Chinese nationwide professional standardizing organization secretariats, lead, or involve in the formulation or revision of over 20 international standards, host international standardization conferences and forums on regular basis, newly assume 50 national and provincial level standardization pilot demonstration tasks, establish 10 team or alliance standard organizations, direct or involve in the formulation and revision of over 200 national and industrial standards, revise over 500 local standard specifications, set up 20 professional standardization committees, collect up to 1.2 million Qingdao standards, develop and invigorate a batch of standardization scientific research service institutions with high professional expertise and strong market competitiveness. (Wang Yu)

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