Cargo is loaded at Qingdao Port, Shandong province. [Photo/IC]

As an important economic powerhouse in China, Shandong province has always been favored by multinational companies, local media reported.

Festo, one of the leading industrial control and automation companies from Germany, opened its global production center in Jinan, capital of Shandong on April 21.

The three-phase project, spanning a total area of 430,000 square meters, will be Festo's largest and most technologically advanced production center in the world. It will also be the company's largest logistics base globally.

Jiang Zuolin, vice-president of operations at Festo China, said that the reason why Festo continued to invest in Shandong is closely related to the excellent business environment in the province.

In recent years, Shandong has been ramping up efforts to further reform and opening up to attract more investment and facilitate global cooperation. The province has launched a slew of precise measures and policies to further utilize foreign capital and guarantee the smooth operations and investments of multinationals in Shandong.

In the first five months of this year, 1,074 new foreign-invested enterprises were established in Shandong, up 31.5 percent year-on-year. The actual utilization of foreign capital reached $8.32 billion, an increase of 70.7 percent year-on-year, 30.9 percentage points higher than that of the whole country.

The province has also been making efforts to promote trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, deepen regional economic integration, and enhance supply, industrial, data and human resources chains as it strives to build an open economy. Improvements on rules of origin, customs procedures and trade facilitation have also been made.