China Newsweek recently released the 2022 Influence List, and Jinan was named City of the Year for 2022, the only city on the list.
Since 2009, or for 14 consecutive years, China Newsweek has been selecting and publishing the Annual Influence List at the end of each year. The list covers multiple areas such as cities, rule of law, economic matters, culture, sports, technology, public benefit, and entertainment.
Jinan not only boasts beautiful natural scenery, but has achieved fruitful results in urban management and industrial development over the years. The ancient city with a history of thousands of years is bursting with vital new growth.
Renowned for its numerous springs, Jinan is also an excellent tourism, historical and cultural city. Travelling in Jinan, you can view the “number one springs”, such as the magnificent Baotu Spring and the Black Tiger Spring. Residents living near the Black Tiger Spring use its water to cook and make tea, which itself is a feature of the Spring City.
Springs are the soul of Jinan. In recent years, the city has made continuous efforts to protect its spring resources. During the National Day of 2022, the Baotu Spring saw its water table reach 30.26 meters, breaking the 57-year record for the highest groundwater level in Jinan. The magnificent scenery was not only a feast for the eyes, but also a display of the great charm of Jinan.
Talent is the primary productive force, and talent resources are increasingly becoming a strategic resource to promote economic and social development. In recent years, Jinan’s talent policy has been upgraded, so that incentives, including favorable talent settlement policies and housing subsidies, have been issued.
Jinan was named as the national pilot city for youth-friendly development, and the city is speeding up its pace in building a policy system that prioritizes youth development and promotes innovation and entrepreneurship for young talents.
Currently, the sound entrepreneurial environment has become a calling card for Jinan, which attracts many local talents who want to return home to start businesses.
Zhang Sai, founder of Jinan Robot Phoenix Technology Co, is a native of Jinan. He studied at Tsinghua University and Columbia University. After graduation, Zhang chose to return to Jinan and set up Robot Phoenix. Through 10 years of development, his company has become one of the country’s top manufacturers of parallel robots.
Over the past years, Jinan has released a slew of favorable policies to attract talent.
According to statistics released by the Jinan Human Resources and Social Security Bureau, from January to September 2022, a total of 190,400 talents with a full-time college degree or above piled into Jinan, accounting for 74.8 of the total talent inflow.
As an international city, Jinan opened its doors to the outside world more than a century ago. Currently, Jinan has beefed up its efforts to promote high-level opening-up.
Jinan was named 2022 Culture City of East Asia at the 12th China-Japan-South Korea Cultural Ministers’ Meeting on Aug 30, 2021. China’s Wenzhou, Japan’s Oita prefecture, and South Korea’s Gyeongju city were also given official certificates of the title.
In July 2022, Jinan opened the Nishan Bookstore in its sister cities of Bath in the United Kingdom and Rennes of France. Excellent Chinese traditional culture books and Jinan special handicrafts are displayed for overseas readers at the bookstores.
“Jinan is a beautiful city, and its unique natural scenery and rich history and culture are great attractions to visitors who tend to linger on there,” said Ann Derwin, ambassador of Ireland to China, after paying a visit to Jinan.
Official data show that since Jinan established sister-city relationship with Japan’s Wakayama prefecture in 1983, the city has signed sister-city agreements with 79 foreign cities across five continents.
On Dec 18, 2022, Jinan dispatched its first investment promotion delegation since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The delegation carried out a series of activities to attract investment from its overseas partners in Singapore.
The ancient city is benefiting from the huge opportunities brought by the three national strategies, namely the ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin, the China (Shandong) Pilot Free Trade Zone, and the Jinan Start-up Area for Growth Drivers Transformation, which are expected to accelerate Jinan’s pace of high-quality development.
