A city of many firsts

Yantai, located in the east Shandong Peninsula on the economic circle around China's Bohai Sea, overlooks Liaodong Peninsula to the north and Japan and South Korea to the east. Covering a total area of 13,700 sq km, the city has four districts, seven satellite cities and one county with a total population of 6.48 million.

History

Yantai has a history of more than 600 years. It was one of the earliest trading ports opening to the outside world and one of the birthplaces of national industry in China. The Silk Road on the Sea set off from this city.

Awards

Yantai has got many awards, including "the gold medal city for business environment" given by the World Bank and the UN-Habitat Award.

It has been named one of the "excellent tourism cities" in China and the International Vine and Wine City (the only city to be awarded in Asia).

Transportation

Yantai has 10 large-and-medium-sized ports, including four national-grade ones, which are connected with more than 100 ports in 70 countries and regions, offering freight services to international cargo ships.

The railway between Yantai and Lancun connects with the country's main line and joins Yantai to cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Jinan and Qingdao.

The railway ferry between Yantai and Dalian has been into use.

Air routes connect Yantai with 48 cities at home and abroad with an average of 101 scheduled flights each week.

Economy

Yantai's total output value was 288.5 billion yuan ($40.19 billion) in 2007 and the local fiscal revenue was 14.08 billion yuan. It has accumulated foreign investment worth $32 billion since opening up, $8.8 billion of which is from Hong Kong. Its total export-import value in 2007 was $23.94 billion.

There are four pillar industries in Yantai - electronics, machinery, food, and gold, three production clusters of automobiles, computers and mobile phones, and three potential industries of petrochemicals, metallurgy and biological pharmaceuticals.

Special products

Yantai, one of the key fruit export bases in North China, has abundant supplies of apple, pear, big cherry, grape, hawthorn and Chinese chestnut. As one of the nation's fishing bases, Yantai also has a great store of prawns, sea cucumbers, abalones and scallops.

Natural resources

Yantai is rich in mineral resources, with over 30 kinds of verified reserves of gold, copper, zinc and so on. It ranks first in the country in both the volume of reserved gold and the output of the metal.

Tourism

Yantai has 120 scenic spots, including Penglai Pavilion, the Stone Tablet Inscriptions of the North Wei Dynasty on Mountain Yunfeng and Changdao Island. Yantai is also famous for its hot springs .

The city receives 800,000 overseas tourists each year.

(China Daily 02/22/2008 page24)