Qingdao Embarks on a New Development Road
Cross-regional urban cooperation and competition will form a new level of China’s super economy as it enters the strategic era of dual circulation economics.
Chief among these competitors and leaders in the north of China is the city of Qingdao. This dynamic city has set many ambitious goals in recent years to become the world’s industrial internet capital and China’s wealth management center, among many ambitions. Currently, Qingdao is once again embarking on a road of transformation by upgrading its own characteristics to set a good example for other cities in the region. The history of China’s reform and opening up proves that vigorous city wide development depends upon the input of resources coming from the national level. In addition, it also depends on whether or not a city can proactively grow with the national strategy and bring benefits to the entire country. Many people expect Qingdao to play a major role solving some of China’s most pressing problems.
Exclusive Sit-Down With Wang Qingxian on What Other Cities Might Learn From Qingdao
Compared with former brilliant economic achievements made during the last century, today’s Qingdao faces tremendous peer pressure from other dynamic Chinese cities.
In fact, contemporary Qingdao no longer has a significant advantage in terms of industrial development. This gives Qingdao leaders an extra sense of urgency to improve. Yet they are vigilant. Since the beginning of this year, Qingdao has started new programs to address these matters. It will revive economic vitality through focused innovations. This means introducing more industries and improving the overall business atmosphere.
Since Wang Qingxian, Party Secretary of Qingdao, took office at the beginning of last year, many reforms have been made to improve Qingdao’s government services and business atmosphere. Recently, Caijing had an exclusive interview with Mr. Wang to discuss the development of Qingdao and what other cities might learn from it.
Qingdao Rural Commercial Bank Explores Ways to Stay Competitive
In the past few years, the in-depth application of fintech in the financial industry has introduced the pressure on rural commercial banks—the latter were already stymied by matters of licenses and restrictions.
However, Qingdao Rural Commercial Bank made a breakthrough by insisting on technological and business innovations. It dug deep in the local market too. At the same time, Qingdao Rural Commercial Bank has fully participated in the implementation of Qingdao’s opening-up development strategy. It has created innovative products and is now ranked second among all national rural commercial banks in dealing with foreign services. In particular, many rural commercial banks rely on a single business model. As such, they are more affected by economic fluctuation cycles. In response to the above challenges, Qingdao Rural Commercial Bank insists on using technology and innovation as a driving force for development. And it is actively exploring various ways to improve its operations too.
Zhu Sendi, A Famous National Consultant, Has High Hopes for Qingdao’s Industry
Qingdao’s enterprises face serious hurdles, namely the twin challenges of technological development and international competition. The city’s businesses can only maintain longer-term competitiveness if they harness more core technologies.
For Zhu Sendi, a well-known Chinese industry authority and a senior consultant for the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China, Qingdao is a familiar city. He has visited this city dozens of times and is very familiar with what technologies are being used by each leading company. Recently, he was once again invited to Qingdao for research purposes. He hopes to know what kind of efforts and exploratory areas local companies he knows well have made to push forward China’s manufacturing industry.
In an interview with Caijing, Zhu Sendi expressed both worries and expectations for Qingdao’s manufacturing industry.
