A poster of the third Conference of Great Business Partners [Photo/Iqilu News]

The third Conference of Great Business Partners kicked off in Jinan, Shandong province on March 28, serving as a vital platform for the province to boost self-opening-up policies in an all-round way.

Themed "Forging Partnerships for High-quality development in Shandong", the three-day conference will feature nine themed activities, including an opening ceremony and six parallel forums.

Sixteen cities in Shandong will conduct a series of promotion and matchmaking events during the conference to attract investments and facilitate the signing of key projects. While demonstrating Shandong's cultural sector, the conference will contribute to the creation of a new highland for China's reform and opening-up.

Participants at the third Conference of Great Business Partners [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The previous two CGBPs were held in Jinan in 2018 and 2020. The first session centered on "Observing Business Ethics, Creates Success" and attracted more than 1,000 guests from such fields as science and technology, education, cultural tourism, medical science and healthcare, as well as finance.

A total of 134 projects were signed, including 128 items in the investment sector with a total contract value of more than 450 billion yuan ($65.5 billion).

The second CGBP was conducted in an online and offline mode, with 7,000 entrepreneurs from 20 countries and regions in China and abroad participating. It focused on investment promotion, with 16 branch venues in Shandong and one in Huanggang, Hubei province.

During the event, 24 projects were signed at the Jinan sub-venue and 44 key projects were negotiated in such industries as the headquarters economy, intelligent manufacturing, high-end equipment, smart cities, as well as cultural tourism.

The CGBP was highlighted in the government work reports of Shandong in 2019, 2020, and 2023.

Shandong makes good use of open platforms to broaden its opening-up. [Photo/Iqilu News]

Key platforms for opening-up

Shandong is making good use of open platforms to broaden its opening-up. On Feb 14, 43 projects in the Qingdao-based China-SCO Local Economic and Trade Cooperation Demonstration Area, or SCODA, started construction, involving high-end equipment, modern marine, new energy and new materials, as well as other fields, with a total investment of 56.64 billion yuan.

A pilot area for new and old kinetic energy conversion, the Jinan Start-Up Area has signed more than 140 high-end projects with a total investment of 330 billion yuan.

The China (Shandong) Pilot Free Trade Zone has implemented 112 tasks over the past three years. The Jinan area of the Shandong FTZ has used $3.2 billion of foreign capital, accounting for 36.2 percent of the city's total, and generated foreign trade value of 197.28 billion yuan, accounting for 33 percent of the city's total.

The average annual growth rate of foreign trade in the Qingdao area of the Shandong FTZ is 27.3 percent. In 2022, the growth rate of the actual utilization of foreign capital in the Yantai area of the Shandong FTZ ranked first among the three areas.

In March, the Shandong provincial government issued "Several Measures on Promoting the Integrated Development of Domestic and Foreign Trade and Continuing to Create a New Highland for Opening-Up".

It also put forward 20 key measures to broaden opening-up and to enhance China's dual-circulation paradigm, a new development pattern that focuses on the domestic economy but also stresses a positive interplay between domestic and international economic flows.