Qingdao, an economic powerhouse in Shandong province, will continue to give priority to advancing its manufacturing industry and foster a number of world-class industrial clusters in the next five years, according to local authorities.

Qingdao, Shandong province [Photo/Guanhai News]

In 2021, Qingdao's industrial added value reached 388.41 billion yuan ($60.98 billion), accounting for 27.48 percent of its GDP. In pursuing economic growth, the city will continue to prioritize the development of the real economy, upgrade the industrial base, modernize industrial chains, and keep the share of manufacturing in the economy basically stable.

Qingdao will adhere to the direction of high-end, intelligent and green development, and focus on promoting seven competitive industries, including smart home appliances, rail transit, new energy vehicles, high-end chemicals, marine equipment, food and beverage, and textiles and garments.

An automatic production line in Qingdao [Photo/Guanhai News]

It will foster a number of world-class and State-level advanced manufacturing clusters, with the scale of competitive industries exceeding 1 trillion yuan.

Efforts will be made to transform and upgrade traditional industries, strengthen strategic emerging industries, and promote the vigorous development of the service sector in Qingdao.

The city will accelerate the development of 10 emerging industries, including integrated circuits, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, biomedicine and medical devices, general aviation, and hydrogen and energy storage. It is also planning to build national strategic emerging industrial bases.

Qingdao has taken the development of strategic emerging industries as an important measure to promote economic transformation and industrial upgrading and to promote the leapfrog development of the regional economy.

In 2021, the added value of strategic emerging industries accounted for 24.5 percent of industries above designated size in Qingdao.

The city will speed up digitalization to create new strengths in the digital economy, and it will develop the digital industry and transform traditional industries with digital technologies.