Foreign Trade

Since China carried forward the opening-up policies in 1979, the foreign trade work of Jinan has been constantly promoted year by year. Jinan is now further carrying forward its "external driving" strategies to continuously improve the environments for foreign investment. Great changes have taken place on the city appearance. The hardware establishments, such as roads, transportation and communication, have been improved as well. The completion and utilization of the infrastructure establishments such as the international airport, the new railway station, the Jinan-Qingdao expressway and the Jinan International Containers Distribution Center, have provided convenient facilities for the import and export trade of the city. 

Jinan is eager to make progress in the field of international cooperation. It has established a preliminary pattern of opening up to the outside world in all-round way. As for its export trade, a historic change has taken place in its transformation from the indirect export to earning foreign exchanges through direct export. To date, Jinan has set up economic and trading relationships with 100-odd countries and has established 167 overseas enterprises in more than 30 countries and regions, and some 150 overseas economic and trade offices. The city has formed an export pattern of various channels, such as the state foreign trade corporations, the industrial trade corporations, the operating trade corporations and the three kinds of enterprises (joint ventures, cooperation or with sole foreign capital). The structure of export commodities has been optimized, and the export markets are diversified in many countries and regions. Among the 132 countries and regions that have trade relationships with China, Hong Kong, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the U.S.A, Southeast Asia and the E.E.C have become the major trade partners of Jinan. Diversified trade ways, such as the improvement and compensation trades have been widely popularized. A multi-leveled development pattern of the foreign capital utilization has been established in an all-round way and wide areas. The scales, economic returns and levels have been promoted as well. In Jinan the foreign investment projects from large corporations of the developed countries and regions, such as Japan, Europe and the U.S.A, have been increased. The investment fields have been widely expanded to such major ones as the urban infrastructure construction, assignment of state enterprises, technological transformation of the medium and small-sized enterprises and value added, general agriculture development and high-tech projects. The cooperative projects, such as Juda Fiber, National TV (Japan). Siemens transfomer (Germany). Shandong Airline renting planes and the People's cooperation with Bazaar with RR-MART (Taiwan), are all with relatively large scales or high-tech contents. The proportion of investment from medium and small-sized enterprises of Europe is constantly

Agriculture

According to the characteristics of the agricultural development in the suburbs of the city, Jinan sets the agricultural industrialization and incorporation of the rural and urban regions as the breakthrough point to promote the development of the countryside and the rural economy. Among the food grains of Jinan, the Longshan millet of Zhangqiu County, rice of Mingshui Town and green and red beans of Shanghe and Jiyang counties are famous both at home and abroad for their hybrid qualities. 

Their outputs are being increased year by year as well. The output of "vegetable basket" products has also been increased by large margin. With their full varieties and high quality, the vegetables of Jinan not only sell well on the markets of Northeast China, Beijing, Tianjin and Tangshan at home, but also are exported to foreign countries and regions such as Japan, the Republic of Korea, Russia, Australia, Taiwan and the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong. Among them, the Chinese green onions of Zhangqiu, garlic and onion of Changqing County and cucumber, spinach and celery of Jiyang are warmly welcome by the consumers on every market for their competitive quality. With their good quality and unique tastes, the dry and fresh fruits of Jinan are widely planted and sell well both at home and abroad. Among the fruits over 500 million jin (250 million kg) of Jinan, the roses of Pingyin County, the Mount Tai white pears, the Xiuchuan red apricots, the Zhangxia persimmon cakes and the thin-skin walnuts and chestnuts of Licheng have been famous for a long time on markets. In addition, other products, such as the cooking peanut oil of Changqing and Zhangqiu counties, the sesame oil of Shanghe and Jiyang counties, the series of E-gelatin and rose products of Pingyin County and the series of products of wooden fish stone and granite of Changqing County and Licheng District, have strong competitive power on the markets as well.

Foreign exchange

Jinan has established exchange and cooperation relationships with over 120 foreign countries and regions in such areas as economy, science and technology and culture. Over the past 20 years, Jinan has successfully received visiting teams or individuals from more than 120 countries and regions of the five continents, which amounted to 295 groups and 2,100 persons. At the same time, Jinan has sent out various delegates of over 50,000 members to more than 80 countries and regions for friendly visits, economic investigations, trade negotiations and academic exchanges on science and technology. The vigorous exchanges with the outside world have developed friendly relationships with the foreign countries and regions, promoted the mutual understandings and friendships. It has also advanced the economic exchanges and cooperation with foreign countries and sped up Jinan's march toward the outside world. 

One after another, Jinan has established sister-city friendships with Yamaguchi and Wakayama in Japan, Coventry in Britain, Sacramento in the U.S.A, Regina in Canada, Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea, Suwon in the Republic of Korea, Nizhny Novgorod in Russia and Izmit in Turkey. Exchanges and cooperation in the fields of culture, science and technology, education and trade between Jinan and these countries are growing all the time. The exchange between Jinan and her sister-cities has vigorously advanced the external-oriented economy, opened external communication ways for economy and developed new external cooperators for the whole city. Meanwhile, more then 10 institutions of higher learning located in Jinan and 10 high or elementary schools have established friendly relationships with those of the sister-cities of Jinan. In addition, by way of the sister-cities, Jinan has held over 100 activities in the foreign countries such as news briefings, economic and trade talks and quality production exhibitions.