Licang district in Qingdao is fostering new economic engines by setting up high-tech industrial parks, as part of its efforts to become a hub city not only in Shandong province but also in East China.
Qingdao, a coastal city in Shandong province, is shifting its focus from manufacturing to cutting-edge digital technologies, with a particular emphasis on big data and cloud computing as key growth drivers.
Recently the Qingdao Academy of Intelligent Industries, the State Key Laboratory for Management and Control of Complex Systems, and the University of Waterloo signed an agreement to jointly build a world-leading research and development center for artificial intelligence and unmanned vehicles in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
The conditions are right for China "to maintain sound economic growth this year" despite complicated domestic and international financial situations, an official at the National Bureau of Statistics said on Wednesday.
COSMOPlat, independently designed and developed by Haier Group, China's largest home appliances maker based in Qingdao, became the country’s first national-class industrial internet platform approved by the National Development and Reform Commission.
China Petroleum & Chemical Corp, China's largest oil refiner, is expected to import 10 million metric tons of crude oil from the United States this year, said the company, also known as Sinopec.