Famed as the nation's top sailing center, Qingdao also has a friendly environment for quality of life and investment. Provided to China Daily

Emerging market economies and developing countries are ready to show their ever-increasing strength and influence to the world today.

An important component are BRICS countries - short for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa- that are well on their way to safeguarding world peace and promoting common development.

The annual BRICS summit that started in 2009 has helped their words on international affairs be taken more seriously.

For better communication and cooperation, four cities from BRICS nations - Rio de Janeiro, Saint Petersburg, Mumbai and Qingdao - established a partnership in 2008. Durban in South Africa joined them later.

After five years of effort, Qingdao and its four partner cities have significantly boosted the common interests of BRICS countries.

So I see our partnership is a strong and solid, vibrant and promising mechanism, with huge potential and bright prospects.

This year's summit will be held in Durban, and I think it is time for the five partner cities to make new progress to keep up with BRICS cooperation.

To this end, we should always insist on the spirit of "common development and prosperity". The partner cities should fully respect each other's interests and benefits as an exemplar of equal consultation and mutual trust as well as understanding for other international cities.

And keeping practical and win-win cooperation is the most important prop in this partnership. We should carry out our agreements and joint projects with this in mind to bring real benefits to the cities and people.

Last but not least, we should have a vision for long-term development, tapping the potential, sharpening the cities' characteristics and making the cooperation more fruitful.

Qingdao is a coastal city at the forefront of China's reform and opening-up campaign. Over decades of development, it has grown into an economic powerhouse in eastern China, as well as an international shipping center in the Asia-Pacific region and a famed seashore tourism resort.

It hosted sailing competitions at the 2008 Olympic and Paralympics Games, and will be home to the ISAF Sailing World Cup in 2013 and 2014, as well as the 2014 International Horticulture Exposition.

Located in East China's Shandong province, Qingdao enjoys a prime geographic location about one hour's flight from two of China's largest cities, Beijing and Shanghai.

Qingdao was named one of the most livable cities worldwide by the United Nations. It has a moderate climate, neither extremely hot in summer nor cold in winter, with an average temperature of 12.5 C.

The city also boasts rich industrial and educational resources. It has China's largest container berth whose handling capacity reached 400 million tons last year, ranking the seventh in the world. It also has 29 State-level research institutes and 29 universities with nearly 320,000 undergraduates.

An important industrial port in China, Qingdao has formed an industrial structure with equipment manufacturing as the mainstay. It is now focusing on developing advanced manufacturing and modern services such as finance, modern logistics, cultural industry, software and outsourcing services.

To date, 111 of the global Fortune 500 companies have some 300 projects in the city. At the same time, Qingdao companies have stepped up their efforts in going global and some of them have extended their investments to India.

Furthermore, the city government plans to build more infrastructure in coming years.

For example, we have mapped out eight new metro lines that require a total investment of 220 billion yuan ($35.4 billion). The first two are expected to be completed in 2014 and 2017.

In addition, we will also invest more than 30 billion yuan this year to add an airport and build a railway linking Qingdao and Shanghai in 2014.

By 2015, there will be up to 1.5 trillion yuan invested in Qingdao, which will surely bring great opportunities for cooperation among the BRICS partner cities.

Therefore, on behalf of the Qingdao government, I will continue to encourage our companies to invest in our BRICS partner cities and sincerely welcome them to visit here and seek common growth.

The author is the deputy mayor of Qingdao city in Shandong province.

For China Daily