The newly unveiled Outline of Qingdao’s 15th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development depicts a grand blueprint for the city’s development in the future. By 2030, Qingdao will take the lead in accomplishing the goal of socialist modernization in the main, and largely build itself into a socialist modern international metropolis for the new era.

Among the 20 main indicators that the Outline sets out, the core indicators concerning development are listed as follows. GDP will see an annual average growth of more than 5 percent, the share of population living permanently in urban areas will reach 81 percent, gross ocean product (GOP) will comprise 35% of GDP, the proportion of R&D spending citywide to GDP will hit 3.5 percent, and 1.75 million new jobs will be created in urban areas.

In accordance with the Outline, in the five years to come, Qingdao will move faster to develop the “10+1” innovation-driven industrial system, including new-generation information technology, artificial intelligence, life and health, with an aim to become a hub for developing new quality productive forces. To build a marine scientific and technological innovation center with international reach, Qingdao strives to be home to as many as 160 high-end marine sci-tech innovation platforms by 2030. To emerge as a world-class sea port and an international shipping center, Qingdao will work hard to ensure that the cargo throughput and the container throughput of Qingdao Port will cross 780 million tons and 41 million TEUs, respectively. Furthermore, to evolve into a hub for opening up in Northern China, Qingdao will work harder to develop and take advantage of such significant opening-up platforms as the SCO Demonstration Area and the Qingdao Area of China (Shandong) Pilot Free Trade Zone, and take further steps to promote high-level opening-up. In addition, Qingdao will fully implement dual control over the amount and intensity of carbon emissions, move faster to develop a new-type energy system and work hard to set up a new-type electrical power system to ensure the goal of peaking carbon emissions will be achieved in a proactive and prudent manner. (Yang Guang)