Qingdao's social and economic development showed stable performance with good momentum for growth in 2021, and the city has made new progress in high-quality development, according to an official report which was released on March 17.

According to a preliminary calculation that was calculated at comparable prices, in 2021, the city's GDP reached 1.41 trillion yuan ($222.65 billion), an increase of 8.3 percent from the previous year and an average increase of 6 percent over the past two years.

Qingdao maintains sustainable and healthy economic development and all-round social progress in 2021. [Photo/VCG]

Last year, the added value of the city's primary industry was 47.01 billion yuan, up 6.7 percent. The added value of the secondary industry totaled 507.03 billion yuan, up 6.9 percent. The added value of the tertiary industry stood at 859.61 billion yuan, up 9.2 percent.

The scale of foreign trade continues to expand in Qingdao. Last year, the city's foreign trade reached 849.84 billion yuan, an increase of 32.4 percent from the previous year. Its exports were 492.13 billion yuan, up 27 percent, while imports totaled 357.72 billion yuan, up 40.7 percent.

The city has beefed up efforts to promote innovative development of trade and make better use of foreign capital. In 2021, there were 908 new foreign-invested enterprises in Qingdao, an increase of 4.4 percent over the previous year. The contracted foreign investment was valued at $21.43 billion, up 20.1 percent from the previous year. The actual use of foreign capital amounted to $6.17 billion, up 5.4 percent year-on-year.

Actions have been taken to further deepen reforms to streamline administration and delegate power, improve regulations and upgrade services to create a market-oriented, law-based and internationalized business environment, unleash more market vitality and add resilience to the economy.

In 2021, 301,000 new market entities were registered in Qingdao. At the end of 2021, there were 1.95 million market entities in the city, an increase of 8.2 percent over the previous year.

Containers are unloaded at Qingdao Port in Shandong province. [Photo/IC]

Qingdao has taken a slew of measures to encourage innovation, apply advanced technologies in businesses' production and operations, and cultivate innovative business models and formats.

The city is home to nine national key laboratories and 10 national engineering technology research centers.

In 2021, Qingdao built eight new technological innovation centers above provincial level, bringing the total number to 24. The number of high-tech enterprises reached 5,554, an increase of 1,158 over the previous year.

Last year, the city added 50 "little giants", or leading small and medium enterprises that specialize in niche sectors, bringing the total number to 97.