At the 100-day countdown to the opening of the Olympics, Qingdao Mayor Xia Geng sent a simple message to the world - "Qingdao is ready for the Olympics!"

From a modest beginning in the 1980s, Qingdao on the coast of east China's Shandong province is now among cities with most well-known brand names in the nation - and is setting the bar higher with plans to have three to five world-famous products by 2010.