In recent years, standards have become a "new calling card" of Qingdao, Shandong province, local media reported.

With the reputation of being "Switzerland of the East", Qingdao has been promoting the construction of standards as a bridge linking the coastal city with the world, improving its international influence and renown.

The 2021 Qingdao Forum on International Standardization is held in Qingdao, Shandong province on July 28. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The Qingdao Forum on International Standardization has become an important platform for standardization work in the world. Qingdao hosted the forum in 2017, 2019, and 2021, which were attended by leaders of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), International Standardization Organization (ISO), and International Telecommunication Union (ITU), as well as nearly 200 foreign guests.

At the forum, participants discussed and exchanged their views on the pressing issues in international standardization, as well as economic, social, and environmental development. The forum created a high-end professional dialogue platform for international standardization with the active participation of the government, enterprises, as well as other stakeholders, which played an important role in enticing Chinese enterprises to make use of their advantages in technology, standards, and quality to enter the international market.

The Qingdao government, the National Standardization Administration, and the ISO signed a tripartite action plan to cultivate professionals. A total of 13 international and domestic training courses have been held, providing training for standardization agency officials from Belt and Road countries, as well as Shanghai Cooperation Organization members. Qingdao has become the first ISO training base in China.

The city also launched measures to support Qingdao University to establish its Standardization College and standardization engineering major, which has enrolled more than 150 undergraduates.

Qingdao has also undertaken the trials of the Ministry of Education's "1 + X standard editing professional skill level certificate (primary) system", carried out free public-service lectures on standardization, as well as explored primary and secondary education curriculum on standardization.

The city has built an important platform for China to participate in international standardization exchanges and cooperation, gather high-end international standardization talents, as well as cultivate practical standardization talents.

In addition, Qingdao has also set up international standardization incentive awards. Zhang Xiaogang, former chairman of the ISO, provided a donation to establish the Qingdao International Time Series Standardization Outstanding Contribution Award Foundation, and was authorized by ISO to establish the Young Scholar Award.

The award is designed to commend and encourage young professionals from ISO member states, attract more international, regional, and national standards organizations and the world's top standardization talents to gather in Qingdao, as well as provide services at home for more Qingdao enterprises and young talents to participate in international standard formulation and international standardization activities.

Promoting standardization globally is one of the important measures to implement the "standardization +" strategy in Qingdao in recent years. Qingdao has applied standardization to all fields of economic and social development, promoting industrial transformation and upgrading, new-type urbanization, modernization of urban governance, as well as equal access to basic public services.

Official data show that Qingdao has to date led or participated in the setting or revision of 170 international standards and more than 3,300 national and industrial standards, undertaken 27 international and national professional standardization technical committees, as well as carried out 74 national standardization pilot and demonstration projects covering 14 categories, ranking first among cities of its kind in China.