Sifang District, the central district of Qingdao city, recently held an investment promotion conference with both Chinese and foreign business giants, at which 33 projects were signed, with a total investment of 36.3 billion yuan and $80 million intention foreign capital.

Sixteen direct investment projects were signed at the conference, including 7 business landed property projects with 20.5 billion yuan of investment, 6 modern service projects with 2.34 billion yuan of domestic investment and $30 million of foreign investment, and 3 traditional service projects with 700 million yuan of domestic investment and $10 million of foreign investment.

The investment event attracted a number of information services and R & D projects, including the Air China Science and Technology Building project, which intends to introduce related industries and headquaters of Air China.

An international rubber trading center is also involved to build an international market for rubber technology and trade, creating a Chinese rubber valley. The Valley plans to build a rubber cultural museum to show the development of the rubber industry, rubber culture as well as rubber technology. A 12,000 square-meter Integrated R & D Information Service of China rubber valley, together with a rubber and plastic and engineering lab, polymer engineering technology research center, National Tire and Control Engineering Technology Research Center, is set to shape the information pivot of the valley. A 36,000m-high new tech enterprises Incubation Center will use the existing Qingdao High tech innovation service center, Qingdao Rubber Chemicals Public Technology Service Platform and Qingdao Returned overseas students undertaking base to forge the international cooperation base of the valley. Also, a 5,000sq.m rubber trade center will attract materials, assistants, equipment, technology, talents and trade centers to come to form the valley inland market of rubber information.

Vanguard Hongkong plans to invest a shopping center in Vanke City in this district, which will contain supermarkets, department stores, brand stores, restaurants, leisure and entertainment.

In addition, La Nice Hotels from Singapore plans to build a five-star hotel, which will be the first five-star hotel in Sifang District. The hotel, located in No.166 Hei Longjiang Road of Sifang District, will cover a 20,000sq.m area and 350 rooms once finished.

According to the View on speeding up the developmnet of the modern industrial park, which was issued by the local authorities recently, Sifang District will focus on building ten key industrial parks, mainly covering R&D, service outsourcing and new indutries.

The parks will include a National College Techno-Park (China Rubber Valley), with a planned area of 180.9 hectares, will take advantage of the Qingdao University of Science and Technology and the R&D ability of Qingdao Soft Control to create a China Rubber Valley; Architectural Design Creative Industry Park, about 50 hectares, aiming to forge a first-class creative industry gathering area; as well as Automobile trade service park; Air China Sience and Technology Park; Qingfanglian Industrial Park; Industrial Design Park; Haier Digital Service Park; Biotechnology Industry Park; Low-carbon Innovation Demonstration Park and Modern Logistics Park.

By Dai Yan (China Daily Qingdao Bureau)

Editor: Li Jing