A news conference is held by the State Council Information Office on Aug 16 to announce arrangements of the fifth Qingdao Multinationals Summit. [Photo by Liu Jian/scio.gov.cn]

According to a news conference held by the State Council Information Office on Aug 16, the fifth Qingdao Multinationals Summit will be held in Qingdao, a coastal city in East China's Shandong, from Aug 27 to 29.

Song Junji, vice-governor of Shandong province, said at the news conference that the summit continues to focus on the theme of "Multinational Corporations and China", providing a comprehensive review of the summit's five-year journey and a systematic overview of Shandong's cooperation with multinational corporations. It will also analyze and forecast the bright cooperation prospects between multinational corporations and China, as well as between multinational corporations and Shandong.

Song said that 473 multinational corporation guests have already confirmed their attendance, including 370 overseas guests and 103 domestic guests. A total of 18 global CEOs and 58 global deputy CEOs, as well as 142 CEOs and 152 deputy CEOs from multinational corporations in the Chinese market, will attend the event. The guests come from various industries, including new-generation information technology, biomedicine, new energy, and high-end equipment.

This year's summit features several firsts. For the first time, it will host a multinational corporation investment and cooperation conference, organize themed promotions for functional zones, arrange a forum on new quality productive forces empowering high-quality development, and launch a special promotion for innovative talent in the marine sector.

In addition, high-quality investment promotion and trade cooperation will be integrated throughout the event. It will focus on precise investment promotion for Shandong's 11 iconic industrial chains, arrange the signing of agreements for 37 trade projects, and organize over 100 investment exchange activities.

Chen Fei, director of the Department of Commerce of Shandong Province, explained that in the first seven months of this year, Shandong's imports and exports maintained strong development momentum, ranking fourth in the country in terms of export volume. The actual use of foreign capital in the first half of the year also ranked fourth in the country.

During the news conference, Wang Bo, vice-mayor of Qingdao, noted that, to date, a total of 179 Fortune 500 companies have invested in 410 projects in Qingdao.

Over the past four summits, Qingdao has made a series of cooperation achievements with multinational corporations, signing agreements for a total of 49 projects with a total investment of $9.85 billion. Key projects such as AstraZeneca, Hexagon, and CJ have already been put into operation, while foreign-funded enterprises such as Yihai Kerry and Bekaert have expanded their investment.