Business environment

1. Location Advantages

Shandong province is located on the east coast of China, at the lower reaches of the Yellow River. It borders Hebei, Henan, Anhui and Jiangsu provinces.

Oceans are an important part of Shandong. Facing to the east of the Korean Peninsula and the Japanese Archipelago across a vast stretch of sea, and looking towards Liaoning peninsula to the north, Shandong is surrounded by seas on three sides. Its coastline is more than 3,300 kilometers long, accounting for one-sixth of the whole Chinese coastline, and its offshore area is almost equivalent to its land area. Its many ports provide convenient transport for its agricultural and manufactured goods.

With close connections to the New Eurasian Continental Bridge Economic Corridor and the Maritime Silk Road, Shandong is one of the provinces in China with the fastest economic growth and the highest degree of opening-up.

2. Infrastructure

Shandong has mature infrastructure due to regular upgrading of its roads, ports and communication networks. It has numerous ports, a dense network of freeways and railways, and nine airports in Qingdao, Jinan, Yantai, Linyi, Weihai, Dongying, Weifang, Jining and Rizhao.

By the end of 2017, the total length of the province's freeways had reached 5,800 km, and that of freeways under construction exceeded 2,290 km. The rural roads mileage of the province totaled 243,000 km, ranking second around the country. There were also 1,198 passenger rail stations and 363 freight stations in the province.

The province's port handling capacity, cargo throughput, and number of berths for ships over 10,000 tons ranked among the best in China. In 2017, the total cargo throughput of the province's coastal ports exceeded 1.5 billion tons, rising 6 percent yearly and ranking only second to Jiangsu province. The total volume of loaded containers reached 25.6 million standard TEU containers (or twenty-foot equivalent units), ranking fourth in the country.

Shandong is also the only province in China with three ports where the annual cargo throughout surpasses 400 million tons. 

Besides, many infrastructure projects related to water conservancy and transport have been launched or completed. For example, Shandong now is integrating Binzhou, Weifang and Dongying ports, and establishing the Bohai Gulf Port Group to boost their integrated growth. The project to resume navigation of the Xiaoqing River, a river originating from spring water in Jinan and meandering over 200 km to Bohai Bay, is underway.

3. Economic Development

Shandong has been accelerating its conversion of new and old kinetic energy in recent years and striving to improve the international competitiveness of its economy.

With high-quality development of its economy and further improvement of its economic structure, Shandong's overall development is close to that of the world's medium-developed economies. In 2017, Shandong's GDP reached 7.27 trillion yuan ($1.14 trillion), a year-on-year increase of 7.4 percent, while GDP per capita was 72,851 yuan, an increase of 7.6 percent year-on-year. The per capita disposable income of urban dwellers has reached 36,789 yuan, with that of rural people reaching 15,118 yuan.

Shandong also attaches importance to an innovation-driven development strategy. There are 11 national intellectual property demonstration parks, seven national innovative industrial cluster pilot programs, and 36 national engineering research centers in the province. The output value of the province's hi-tech enterprises in 2017 accounted for 35 percent of the industrial output of enterprises above designated size, 1.2 percent higher than in 2016.