Youth summit spawns a bevy of new projects

The International Summit on Innovation and Development of Youth Entrepreneurs has become a vital platform for East China’s Shandong province to attract investment and business, local officials said.

The 2019 summit, which was held in September last year, introduced 121 projects, worth about 231.8 billion yuan ($32.75 billion) in total.

After the event, the Shandong government built a team to review regularly how these projects have progressed and do their best to provide help.

To date, 46 projects have been signed with investment amounting to 114.35 billion yuan, and 29 have started construction in cities across the province.

Among these is the Ruigan (Jinan) sensor project, which was launched in Zhangqiu district of Jinan, capital of Shandong province, in February.

“Thanks to the local government’s customized services, it only took us three months to make an acquisition overseas, paving the way for the project’s launch,” said Zhang Yuanjie, manager of the Ruigan (Jinan) sensor project.

“The summit offered us easier access to quality projects, which can bolster the city’s high-quality development,” said Lou Chunyang, deputy director of the Zhangqiu investment promotion service center.

The company started operation in June, and it is expected to achieve output value of 350 million yuan within this year.

“Next, we will step up cooperation with local governments to set up a semiconductor industry fund,” Zhang said.

The fund will provide investment to promising companies and projects in the fields of semiconductor, big data, and internet of things, driving the development of the technology industry and high-end manufacturing in Shandong province, he added.

Another project is China’s first marine big data demonstration base, which is under construction in Qingdao, a coastal city in Shandong province.

When completed, the base will feature a big data storage center, a marine big data exhibition center and numerous business incubators.

It will boost the growth of emerging industries in the city and generate favorable economic profits, said a local official.

Sun Chao, manager of the project, said Shandong boasts remarkable advantages in the coordinated development of modern marine and information technologies.

“There are prosperous traditional marine industries and a group of academic institutions which focus on marine research,” Sun said.

“All of these can offer great support to our work on building a comprehensive platform integrating marine industries and big data,” he added.