CRRC employees operate an assembly line of the company in Qingdao, Shandong province. [Photo by Zhang Jingang/For China Daily]

The province of Shandong has been making continuous efforts to develop new growth drivers to fuel the high-quality development of its regional economy in recent years.

Shandong became the first comprehensive pilot zone in China to replace old economic growth drivers with new ones in 2018 as part of its efforts to support the nation's economic upgrading.

The next generation of information technology is one of 10 industries that Shandong has been paying close attention to. The province has launched a slew of policies and measures to fuel the development of the industry.

In the past three years, Shandong's information technology industry has been continuously improving in terms of both quality and efficiency, and it has been becoming increasingly competitive.

In 2019, the province's information technology industry realized 876.91 billion yuan ($133.99 billion) in main business revenue. Qingdao, Jinan, and Yantai were the top three cities in terms of IT industry scale, accounting for 74.3 percent of Shandong's total.

Smart home appliances from Qingdao, software and high-end computing products from Jinan, computer and network products from Yantai, computer peripherals from Weihai, electro-acoustic devices from Weifang, and electronic components from Zibo have become important parts of the province's economy.

Jinan and Qingdao boast competitive software industries in China.

The seven national demonstration bases for the new industrialization of the information industry in Shandong, including the Jinan Big Data Base, the Qingdao Software Park, and the Weihai Electronic Information Industry Park, have formed a group of leading enterprises and industrial clusters with national influence in 5G, big data, smart home, high-end software, industrial internet, and more.