Shandong sees high-level utilization of foreign investment

Shandong province has maintained stable and high-level utilization of foreign capital during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), with accumulated actual foreign investment reaching $77.26 billion, officials said at a news conference on Friday.

In the first quarter of this year, foreign investment in Shandong's high-tech industries accounted for 44.2 percent of the total, 15 percentage points higher than the national average.

The news conference is held by the Information Office of Shandong Provincial People's Government at the construction site of AstraZeneca's Qingdao base, where workers were busy installing circuits, laying pipelines and transporting materials. The $750 million project will be committed to inhalation aerosol production and supply.

To date, Shandong is home to over 19,000 foreign-funded enterprises in operation, including 943 projects invested in by 236 Fortune Global 500 companies, officials said.

The province has been actively enhancing services for foreign businesses by organizing high-profile events such as the Qingdao Multinationals Summit, Hong Kong-Macao Shandong Week and Singapore Shandong Week. It has also established government-enterprise communication mechanisms, including the Provincial Government Economic Advisory Council, Multinationals Roundtable and Foreign-funded Enterprises Symposium.

Additionally, Shandong has improved its cross-departmental coordination mechanism for handling complaints from foreign-invested enterprises, setting up 196 complaint-handling agencies to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of investors.