— As the coastal city of Qingdao, nestled by the Yellow Sea, once again enters “summit time” at the Qingdao International Conference Center(QICC), the gaze of global multinational corporations is shifting from traditional manufacturing workshops to the more imaginative blue ocean of China’s service sector. On June 15, the 7th Qingdao Multinationals Summit will officially commence.
This premier event, held consecutively since 2019, has adopted the theme “Multinationals and China – Joining Hands for a New and Shared Future in the 15th Five-Year Plan,” marking the first time it places the service sector at the heart of institutional opening-up. In the inaugural year of the 15th Five-Year Plan, Qingdao aims to send a clear message to the world: the dividends of China’s next wave of high-level opening-up are deeply rooted in the cultivation and sharing of the service industry.
The 15th Five-Year Plan Targets New Service Avenues, Institutional Opening-Up Unleashes Strong Magnetism for Foreign Investment
Today, the service sector has emerged as a new frontier in global industrial competition and a focal point for international trade and economic rules. While the focus of opening-up over the past decades was on scaling up manufacturing, services have now firmly taken the lead as a primary destination for foreign capital. The opening pages of the 15th Five-Year Plan further emphasize the deepening of service-value chains. Expanding high-level opening-up in services, attracting investment and operations from renowned global enterprises, and extending the overseas business network of “manufacturing + services” – these strategic moves draw new coordinates for the layouts of multinational corporations in China, and signal the country’s ambition to evolve from the “world’s factory” into a “global services hub.”
As the host of the 7th Summit, Qingdao is no longer just a gateway to opening up, but also a stress test ground for the opening up of the service industry.
This summit features a closed-door meeting on policies to expand the opening up of the service sector, focusing on precise interpretation of pilot policies, sharing of experiences between government and enterprises, and discussions on cooperation directions. Through in-depth government-enterprise exchanges, the summit aims to accumulate investment attraction results and ensure that policy dividends are effectively transformed into tangible business opportunities.
Qingdao is using a summit to outline a clear path for foreign investors on how to “deepen their roots in China” after “investing in China”.
Leveraging the opportunities presented by the national pilot program, Qingdao continues to deepen its efforts in opening up the service sector. In April 2025, Qingdao was approved as a national comprehensive pilot city for expanding the opening up of the service sector, focusing on key areas such as value-added telecommunications, medical and health care, financial services, commerce, culture and tourism, and technology services. It has implemented 112 pilot tasks and continuously introduced a number of pioneering and groundbreaking opening-up measures.
Qingdao has set a clear timetable for itself: to strive to complete more than 60% of all pilot tasks by 2026, so that the word “openness” has a quantifiable and verifiable milestone.
Providing precise support to foreign investment across the entire value chain, jointly writing a new chapter of opening-up during the 15th Five-Year Plan
“Qingdao boasts a superior geographical location, a complete industrial base and industrial system. In recent years, it has vigorously developed the biopharmaceutical industry and introduced a number of policies and measures to continuously optimize the business environment.” At the 6th Qingdao Multinationals Summit, Hu Yiqing, Vice President of AstraZeneca China and Head of Rare Disease Business Unit, praised, “The government’s emphasis on the development of foreign-invested enterprises, as well as its dedicated, professional and efficient services, have further strengthened our determination to develop in Qingdao.”
As the city enters the 15th Five-Year Plan period, Qingdao has made significant progress on a number of pilot initiatives aimed at expanding the opening-up of its service sector. In the value-added telecommunications sector, leveraging the pilot program for expanding the opening-up of the service sector, restrictions on foreign equity ratios for certain value-added telecommunications services have been substantially relaxed, encouraging foreign-invested enterprises to engage in related businesses. In the financial sector, Qingdao continues to deepen the Qualified Foreign Limited Partner (QFLP) pilot program and actively promotes cross-border settlement using the digital yuan, facilitating smoother cross-border capital flows.
Notably, in the medical and health care sector, the first foreign-invested hospital with independent legal person status in the Qingdao Free Trade Zone has signed a strategic agreement and is being planned and constructed to meet the standards of a Grade III hospital. At the same time, the city is supporting foreign physicians in practicing and opening clinics in Qingdao, accelerating the implementation of the “approval-upon-entry” mechanism for innovative drugs and medical devices, and focusing efforts on building the China Kangwan Health Industry Cluster.
This series of opening-up measures, progressing in stages and mutually reinforcing one another, has built a comprehensive ecosystem for the high-level opening-up of Qingdao’s service sector. The gathering of industry decision-makers from around the world on the shores of the Yellow Sea not only reflects recognition of Qingdao’s vitality in opening-up but also signifies a deep confidence in the new opportunities presented by China’s institutional opening-up of the service sector.
The tide rises over the Yellow Sea, with fair winds and full sails ready for the journey, this landmark event is transforming Qingdao’s pioneering experience in service sector opening-up into development opportunities that global enterprises can share and jointly explore. Standing at the new starting point of the 15th Five-Year Plan, Qingdao embraces global cooperation with a committed and meticulous approach to opening-up, striding toward a brand-new future.
Contact Info:
Name: Wang Yu axon
Email: Send Email
Organization: Phoenix Network Qingdao Channel
Website: https://qd.ifeng.com/
Release ID: 89194676
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