The province is ambitiously aiming to achieve an annual gross domestic product of more than 2 trillion yuan (US$242 billion) by 2010, with a per capita value surpassing 20,000 yuan (US$2,420).

By the year 2020, overall annual GDP is expected to reach 5 trillion yuan (US$602 billion) and per capita GDP 50,000 yuan (US$6,040). Shandong residents will have medium-level living standards by that time.

Shandong has experienced fast growth in the past five years. Last year all of the combined value of its GDP value, bank deposits and industrial sales income surpassed 1 trillion yuan (US$121 billion).

Shandong Governor Han Yuqun said the development over the coming several years will mainly rely on rapid growth in agriculture, high-tech industries, the private-sector economy and infrastructure construction.

As an agricultural power in China, the province will further speed up the pace of its agricultural industrialization, standardization and internationalization.

Based on agricultural scientific and technological upgrading, the agricultural sector will greatly improve its economic benefits and comprehensive competitiveness, the governor said.

The province will continue to support and foster its 100 large agricultural enterprises. With the building of a high-yield, organic and safe agricultural structure, the province will promote stock-breeding and the raising of seafood as its sustainable industries.

Han also said Shandong will further open to the outside world, inviting more business opportunities with foreign investors, especially with Japan and South Korea.

The province has already launched a new strategy to build the Shandong Peninsula into an international processing and manufacturing center within the next five years, to take advantage of industrial transfers from Japan and South Korea, some European countries and the United States.

New industrial systems will be set up as more new and advanced technologies are introduced. The province will emphasize the development of three major industrial fields, including information technology, biotechnology and new materials. In the coming five years, Shandong will try to export more electronic machinery and high-tech products, aiming for an annual growth rate of at least 30 percent.

(China Daily April 15, 2003)