In conjunction with celebrating the rain water solar term on Feb 18, the county-level city of Pingdu in Qingdao, East China's Shandong province, held a signing ceremony for key projects to unveil a joint talent training practice base, accompanied by the signing of 50 projects with a total investment of 22.35 billion yuan ($3 billion).

At the signing ceremony, data disclosed by Pingdu mayor Zhang Hongye, who also serves as deputy secretary of the Pingdu committee of the Communist Party of China, revealed that industrial technological upgrade investment has maintained double-digit growth for four consecutive years and the proportion of total research and development investment in GDP has ranked third in Qingdao for two consecutive years.

The signed projects cover multiple areas such as smart home appliances, modern agriculture, high-end chemicals, new energy and new materials, cultural tourism and healthcare. They complement Qingdao's innovative industrial layout and closely align with the 10 key industry chains that Pingdu is emphasizing to showcase its endowments in overall industrial development, local government officials said.

During the signing ceremony, Zhang emphasized the Qingte Intelligent Manufacturing Industrial Park project. Located in Tianzhuang town of Pingdu, the Qingte Intelligent Manufacturing Industrial Park has a total investment of 5.07 billion yuan. Leveraging automobile axle technology, it is setting up incubators, accelerators and R&D and production bases for manufacturing key components for commercial vehicles.

Since breaking ground in March of last year, the Qingte project has steadily progressed, including the construction of large casting workshops, comprehensive utilization workshops, sand regeneration workshops and mold repair workshops. Its first phase production is expected to launch by December, and upon full completion, it is estimated that annual production of key automotive, agricultural and engineering machinery, along with robot components, will reach 200,000 metric tons. With the production of 550,000 front axles, 200,000 sets of primary and passive gears and 150,000 sets of front axle assemblies, the project's annual output value will hit 10 billion yuan, driving employment for more than 1,000 workers.

During the Qingdao two sessions in 2025, Ren Gang, mayor of Qingdao and deputy secretary of the CPC Qingdao committee, proposed that Pingdu should combine its own positioning and advantages, leverage its subjective initiative and strive to accelerate its high-quality development while serving the overall development of the city.

As a hinterland of Qingdao, Pingdu, located at the geometric center of the Jiaodong Peninsula, is speeding up construction of a comprehensive node city within the Qingdao metropolitan area, becoming an important advanced manufacturing and modern agricultural base, an official said.

With two high-speed railways and two freight railways passing through the region and six expressways crisscrossing, Pingdu is the county-level city with the longest mileage of national highways. Additionally, the area is adjacent to the three major ports of Qingdao, Yantai and Weifang. Qingdao Jiaodong International Airport is reachable in 40 minutes and Jinan in one hour, with direct access to Beijing in less than three hours.

On Feb 6, a meeting focusing on promoting high-quality development through high-quality projects was held in Qingdao, and in the following week, Pingdu held a conference to accelerate high-quality development of its advanced manufacturing. At that meeting, Zhao Xingji, secretary of the CPC Pingdu committee, said agglomeration of advanced manufacturing is very crucial.

On Feb 27, a Pingdu 2025 key project construction site promotion meeting was held in the city's economic development zone. A total investment of 23.28 billion yuan for 57 projects commenced construction, covering advanced manufacturing, modern efficient agriculture and livelihood improvement.