As China's big economic province, Shandong is not only the bridge connecting the developed regions of inland China, but also the window opening to the outside world. In the grand blueprint of the Belt and Road initiative, Shandong is located at the heart of global commerce and occupies an important position of the economic hub in East Asia.
 In the world, Shandong is separated from Japan and South Korea by sea. It is the important trade node of the Belt and Road initiative and the economic center and hub of East Asia. In China, Shandong is located at the connection point of the Yangtze River Delta economic belt, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and the Central Plains Economic Zone, has the broad economic hinterland and excellent regional advantages, has mature conditions for opening new patterns to the inside and outside world, and occupies an outstanding position in the China’s vital pattern of regional development in the new era.
 With the historical opportunity of constructing a comprehensive test area of transition to new from old economic engines, Shandong will undertake the task of "test field" and "ace spiker" of transition to new from old economic engines, take the lead in making plans about the transition of economic engines in the northern area, explore a path pattern that can be reproduced and popularized, promote the economic transformation and upgrading for improving quality and efficiency, and play a key role in optimizing the north-south pattern.
 
Well-developed Infrastructure
Shandong Province has an expressway mileage of 5,820 km. It has a high-speed railway mileage of 1,240 km, which will increase to 2,836 km by 2020. That means that the time distance between any two cities within the province will be less than three hours. At present, 279 trains of Sino-Euro and Sino-Asia Cargo Railway have been dispatched from eight cities in Shandong (Jinan, Qingdao, Binzhou, Weifang, Linyi, Zibo, Weihai, and Rizhao). These trains serve as international logistics routes of the Belt and Road initiative, reaching out to such countries as Germany, Poland, Mongolia and Russia. The nine airports in Shandong (Jinan, Qingdao, Yantai, Weihai, Linyi, Weifang, Dongying, Jining, and Rizhao) offer non-stop flights to more than 300 domestic cities. At Jinan and Qingdao airports, there are many international direct flights to Hong Kong, Seoul, Singapore, Frankfurt, Los Angeles, and other cities.
 
Open Investment Environment
Shandong Province has fully implemented the negative list system, substantially liberalized market access, and followed the fundamental principle “market entities can do anything which is not prohibited by the law”. All these have further stimulated vitality of market players in Shandong, restricted public power, encouraged competition, countered monopoly, and made the province better geared towards the international practice and rules. The province has strictly protected all kinds of property rights according to law. Especially, it has intensified the efforts of intellectual property protection, given equal treatment to relevant parties in government procurement, and ensured the transparency of supervision and law enforcement, and the consistency and stability of policies. The province has pushed for the facilitation of foreign investment and international trade, and advanced the practice of “one window, one format” for business filing and registration of foreign-funded enterprises. All these have improved government services and saved the time and human costs of enterprises.
 
A Huge Consumer Market
In 2017, Shandong Province registered a total volume of retail sales of social consumer goods 3.3649 trillion yuan, ranking second nationwide. The per capita disposable income and spending power of Shandong Province have surpassed the national average level. With provincial capital Jinan as the center, the area within the radius of 600 km is home to more than 500 million people. These people contributed around one-third of total expenditure of mainland China in 2017. Shandong is also witnessing a thriving scene of e-commerce service, which has covered each corner of the province. In 2017, the volume of networked transactions in Shandong amounted to 3.49 trillion yuan, increasing by 32%. On the “Double 11 Shopping Carnival” of 2017, people of Shandong spent 13.927 billion yuan online (Source: monitoring analysis of Sunsharp).
 
Abundant Human Resources
Shandong is home to 100 million people and is still in a period of population growth. Besides the abundant human resources, people in Shandong are generally well-educated. According to the higher education ranking of The Times of the UK, two universities of Shandong have been included in the list of world-class universities in 2017-2018, namely Shandong University in Jinan and Ocean University of China in Qingdao. There are 146 regular institutions of higher learning in Shandong, where two million students study. Besides, Shandong has 166 vocational schools and 77 vocational high schools.
 
Service-oriented Governmental Agencies
Shandong is striving with the utmost sincerity to build an efficient administrative ecological environment for the innovators, entrepreneurs and investors. It spares no effort to promote the reform of "completing all formalities at one time". The full coverage of "completing all formalities at one time" will be realized before the end of September, the establishment formalities of any new enterprise will be completed within three working days, the registration of real estate will be completed within five working days, and the engineering construction project examination and approval will be completed within 45 working days. We will make efforts to give the maximum convenience and support to any investor and entrepreneur anywhere.
 We are introducing a superior supportive policy. We have decided to set up 600 billion yuan of funds for transition to the new from old economic engines to focus on supporting the "top 10" industrial cooperation projects. We fully implement 20 new talent polices and 31 supportive polices about scientific and technological innovation. We provide startup guaranteed loans for the newly-established small and micro enterprises. The Internet entrepreneurs can enjoy the startup guaranteed loan and interest subsidy policy. We also have studied a series of policies and measures for encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship and supporting development of the real economy. We will introduce the high-level cooperator with the best resources. No matter what the profession or industry, the government will certainly meet the needs from the enterprises.
 To strengthen the strategic cooperation and industrial connection with the world's top 500 enterprises and global industrial leading enterprises and facilitate the external exchange and cooperation of the local competitive industry, Shandong has established many platforms opening to the outside world in recent years, thus facilitating the investors' negotiation and contact with Shandong enterprises through the different channels.
 
International Living Environment
In Shandong, there are the International School of Qingdao, Jinan Thomas School, Korean School in Yantai, Weihai Zhongshi International School, and other high-caliber international education institutions. 24 foreign banks from Australia, the UK, Japan, the US, and other countries have presence in major cities and development zones of Shandong. IKEA, Metro, and other international chain supermarkets can meet the shopping needs of the local people. United Family Hospital and other medical institutions ensure sound medical services. In Shandong, you can also find a large number of high-end brand hotels, such as Westin, Sheraton, Shangri-La, and Intercontinental Hotel.
 
Rich cultural heritage
More than 2,500 years ago, the great ancient ideologist Confucius said: “It is such a delight to have friends coming from afar”. As a place of profound culture, Shandong is the hometown of Confucius, the origin of Confucianism culture, and the cradle of Chinese civilization.
Qilu culture values righteousness, propriety, intelligence, and honesty. It advocates the practice of cultivating one's moral character and putting one's family affairs in order. It also upholds governing and benefiting the people, putting the people’s interest first, and making people rich and educated. Shandong has produced a galaxy of sages and scholars, such as Confucius, Mencius, Chuang Tzu, Mo Tzu, Sun Zi, Zhuge Liang, Qi Jiguang, Wang Xizhi, Li Qingzhao, Xin Qiji, Pu Songling, Fan Li, and Lu Ban, spanning the fields of scholarship, military, calligraphy, mathematics, business, and craftsmanship, thus making Shandong a cradle of great people