The renowned historical and cultural city of Jinan is transforming itself into a dynamic city suitable for living, working and investing.

Jinan is the birthplace of Longshan Culture, which history can be dated back 4,000 years. Covering an area of more than 8,000 square kilometers and with a permanent population of nearly 8 million, Jinan is the political, economic, cultural, scientific, educational and financial center of Shandong province.

As an important regional hub city in China, Jinan connects two north-south metropolitan areas of Shanghai-Nanjing and Beijing-Tianjin, adjoins two key economic circles of the Yangtze River Delta and Bohai Rim Region and radiates from the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River from east to west.

The well-developed railways connect the city to more than 200 other cities in China every day. It only takes one and a half hours and three hours to go to Beijing and Shanghai respectively by the high-speed trains. Jinan International Airport connects more than 80 cities at home and abroad.

As a State-level innovation city and an established software city in China, there are various kinds of high and new technology research and production platforms in Jinan, such as the Quantum Technology and Application Research Center and Quantum Technology Research Institute at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

There are 49 colleges and universities in Jinan with nearly 170,000 graduates each year. It also has more than 800 types of enterprise research and development organizations, 107 province-level or above scientific research institutes and more than 600,000 scientific and technical personnel. Its rich human resources and great scientific strengths guarantee the advantages in technological innovation enjoyed by Jinan and these have become the impetus for enterprise development, the local authority said.

As one of the nine major financial cities in China, Jinan has more than 590 financial institutions. The added value of the financial industry accounts for 11.6 percent of annual GDP, and the financial industry has become one of the city's leading factors.

Jinan has abundant logistics resources, which provide strong support for the development of domestic and international companies operating there. The city has 11 State-level 5A logistics companies, and was selected as "The Most Innovative City in China's Logistics Industry in 2017" and "The Most Influential City in China's Logistics Industry in 2017" by the industry association.

The city is also an important manufacturing center in China with a number of industry giants, such as Sinotruk, the biggest manufacturing base of heavy trucks in China and Jier Machine-tool Group, one of the top three stamping equipment manufacturers in the world.

Officials said the city government is continuously looking for more business opportunities and trying to further boost its commerce by identifying and developing emerging industries.