Since the beginning of this year, Qingdao has been working hard to stabilize investment and seek growth, and made headway in fixed asset investment in both quantity and performance. As indicated by statistics, Qingdao’s fixed asset investment in the first half of 2024 rose 5.3% year on year, 1.4 and 0.4 percentage points higher than the national and provincial growth rates and ranking Qingdao 5th among China’s 15 sub-provincial cities.

In the first half year, Qingdao ramped up efforts to attract businesses and investment, and to promote planning and construction of key projects, stored up and pushed ahead with 1,391 key projects at county, municipal and provincial level, signed new agreements on 518 projects worth more than RMB 100 mln each, with a total planned investment of RMB 352.6 bln. Qingdao soared to the first place in Shandong Province in regard to the number and the amount of signed projects, and the number of newly started projects, providing sustained impetus to investment growth.

Investment structure in Qingdao was constantly improved, and key sectors performed noticeably well in investment, with the second industry reporting a 20.9% increase in investment. Qingdao makes scheduling on a rolling basis for industrial projects worth more than RMB 40 bln each, with a total investment of RMB 576.8 bln. The work was half done in the first half year when RMB 60.2 bln worth of investment was fulfilled, representing 60% of the annual investment plan.

The investment in the high-tech industry sustained its fast growth, propping up the formation of new productive forces. The investment in the high-tech sector surged 91.1% year on year, outpacing the first quarter by 13.3 percentage points, representing 23.6% of the total investment in Qingdao and helping citywide investments to gain 10.9 percentage points. The investment in the strategic emerging industries and industrial technological upgrades increased 13.0% and 9.6%, outperforming the total investment growth by 7.7 and 4.3 percentage points.  (Yang Guang)