The fourth session of the 16th Tai'an Municipal People's Congress is held on Feb 3. [Photo by Tian Zhongkai/Taian.dzwww.com].

Wang Yunpeng, mayor of Tai'an, delivering a speech in the session. [Photo by Tian Zhongkai/Taian.dzwww.com]

A government work report delivered by Tai'an Mayor, Wang Yunpeng, on Feb 3 at the fourth session of the local People's Congress has revealed that the city made new breakthroughs last year, as it garnered efforts to the opening up of its economy.

Whilst continuing to focus on attracting investment and project constructions, Tai'an will actively adjust to the economic "new normal", enhance innovation capabilities, further expand its opening up and work hard to maintain a sound economic growth as well as social harmony and stability, Wang said.

According to his report, contractual foreign investment in the city topped $780 million in 2014, an increase of 49 percent from the year earlier. Completed investments reached $410 million, up 34.6 percent on the previous year, and the city's overseas investment hit $160 million, jumping 53.4 percent compared to the year earlier.

Imports and exports totaled $2.97 billion in 2014, up 19.5 percent on the previous year. Exports rose 26.7 percent to $1.73 billion, and imports climbed 10.8 percent to $1.24 billion.

In 2014, Tai'an made great effort in attracting domestic and foreign investment. As a result, the construction of some 350 Chinese-funded major projects, each with a planned investment of over 100 million yuan ($16 million), kicked off last year; 69 more than 2013. Additionally, 79 foreign-funded projects also began construction, 22 more than the previous year. Large-scale projects including a fashion industrial park, a glass fiber industrial park and a modern service industrial park are also under construction.

The city also stepped up its efforts in technological innovation and carried out more than 1,100 technological innovation projects. As a result, R&D investment accounted for 2.15 percent of the city's GDP last year. Tai'an now has 103 high-tech and new technology enterprises, as well as four national level R&D enterprise centers.

The Tai'an-based Shandong Companion Group won first prize in the National Science and Technology Progress Awards recently, highlighting the progress made in the development of high-tech companies in the city.

Thanks to the High-tech Zone's emphasis on introducing high-end projects, a number of strategic emerging industry projects, including a state intelligent robot project and a laser manufacturing project, have been attracted to the area.

The city's service industry maintained a strong growth momentum, especially in the tourism sector, which saw more than 53 million tourists visit the city, an increase of 10 percent over 2013's figures. Tourism revenues totaled in excess of 50 billion yuan, up 13.3 percent on last year’s figure. The number of tourists attracted to Mount Taishan, China's most sacred mountain, topped 5 million for the first time.

Mayor Wang said that Tai'an will continue to push ahead with its industrial restructuring and transformation. He added that the city has set its economic growth target for 2015 at around 8.5 percent, its fixed-asset investment growth at 15 percent, import and export growth at 11 percent, and the growth of actual utilization of foreign investment at 18 percent.

As part of the effort to promote industrial transformation and upgrading, Tai'an will further develop strategic emerging industries, including new materials, new energy, energy-saving and environmental protection, electronics, IT, and bio-medicine and bio-breeding. The city will promote intelligent production, the digitalization of production facilities and the maximization of energy efficiency.

It will also accelerate the construction process of major industrial parks, including an 8 billion yuan new materials tech park, a 6 billion yuan environmental protection industrial park, a 3 billion yuan tech park and a 3 billion yuan Internet industrial park.