Cui Hongguang, Deputy Director of the Shandong Provincial Department of Commerce, disclosed on the 26th at a press conference held by the provincial people's government that in the first five months of this year, the province's actual use of foreign capital reached US$6.33 billion, accounting for 10.9% of the national total. Among this, the high-tech industry has become a "new engine" for the province's foreign capital utilization, growing 15.9% year-on-year and accounting for 43.9% of actual foreign capital used; paid-in capital amounted to US$2.78 billion, with its share up 15.3 percentage points compared with the same period last year.

The photo shows the press conference site.

According to Cui Hongguang, Shandong has continuously optimized its foreign capital structure. In addition to the high-tech industry situation mentioned above, in the first five months of this year, the manufacturing sector accounted for 28.9% of the province's foreign capital utilization, with 57 projects of over US$30 million each implemented, totaling US$2.95 billion in paid-in capital, or 46.7%; the province has cumulatively attracted investment from 236 Fortune Global 500 companies.

Using key projects and major events as drivers is one of the important ways Shandong attracts foreign capital. According to Kong Tao, Director of the Foreign Investment Management Division of the Shandong Provincial Department of Commerce, since the beginning of this year, Shandong has carried out more than 170 investment promotion activities and built up 209 projects of over US$30 million each across the "three batches" of projects under discussion, signed, and implemented. "The 2024 Hong Kong and Macao Shandong Week held in May this year saw the signing of 69 key foreign-funded projects with a total investment of US$10.27 billion."

Kong Tao said that in the first five months, Shandong attracted and implemented 22 projects of over US$50 million each, totaling US$1.65 billion, accounting for 26.1% of the province's total foreign capital attracted. In addition, Shandong encouraged 62 foreign-funded enterprises in the province to increase capital by US$750 million through methods such as profit reinvestment and debt-to-equity swaps, accounting for 11.8%; it also stepped up efforts to attract investment in the financial sector, with QFLP and other projects utilizing US$710 million in foreign capital.

The reporter learned on site that, in order to optimize the foreign investment environment, Shandong has continued to improve the roundtable communication mechanism for foreign-funded enterprises and made good use of the "Service Platform for Stabilizing Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment." At present, more than 77,000 foreign-funded and foreign trade enterprises in the province have achieved full platform coverage, and more than 4,000 urgent and difficult problems of enterprises have been resolved cumulatively.