Workers are busy in the modernized workshop of FAW Jiefang Qingdao Auto Co., Ltd. in the Jimo auto manufacturing industrial cluster area.  By Liu Lanxing

The latest data from the Qingdao Municipal Bureau of Statistics show that 379 enterprises based in 10 key industrial cluster areas in Qingdao generated a total operation revenue of 160.91 billion yuan in the first three quarters, up 12.4 percent year-on-year and 7.3 percentage points faster than the growth rate in the first half of 2020. Notably, the intelligent manufacturing application demonstration industrial cluster area, the Jimo auto manufacturing industrial cluster area, the Jiaozhou special equipment manufacturing industrial cluster area, the New and Hi-tech Zone advanced manufacturing (robotics and biological medicine) industrial cluster area and the Laixi food industrial cluster area all witnessed two-digit growth in terms of operation revenue. 

Despite the huge impact of the epidemic as well as severe and complicated economic situations at home and abroad across the year, Qingdao has taken into full account both the epidemic control and prevention and the construction of key industrial cluster areas. All 10 key industrial cluster areas have witnessed substantial growth in profit over the same period last year. Date show that the profits reaped by these 10 cluster areas have added up to 10.07 billion yuan, increasing by 31.7 percent year-on-year and 23.4 percentage points more than the growth rate in the first half of 2020. 

Currently, Qingdao is embracing a new round of opening-up and development by engaging in the construction of the new international cooperation platform for the Belt and Road Initiative, integrating itself into ecological conservation and high-quality development across the Yellow River basin and participating deeply in the “Dual circulation” development paradigm. These 10 key industrial cluster areas, based on their own resource endowment, are embracing dislocated development, prompting the transformation and upgrading of all industries in the city and building themselves into main engines for replacing old growth drivers with new ones.