The 7th Qingdao Multinationals Summit Kicks Off: Joining Hands for the 15th Five-Year Plan to Build a New Ecosystem of Openness and Cooperation

QINGDAO, China, June 15, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The 7th Qingdao Multinationals Summit (QMS), co-hosted by the Shandong Provincial People's Government and the Ministry of Commerce, opened in Qingdao from June 15 to 17, 2026. The summit officially kicked off with its Opening Ceremony today, June 16. The summit attracted 357 multinationals from 44 countries and regions, including 105 Fortune Global 500 companies and 252 industry leaders. Modern service sector firms accounted for a record 20% of all participants.

As 2026 ushers in China's 15th Five-Year Plan, the summit is themed

Multinationals and China — Advancing with the 15th Five-Year Plan for Innovation and Future. The event comprises three main segments—the Opening Ceremony and Main Forum, bilateral meetings, and parallel forums, featuring a total of 29 supporting activities.

During the summit, the Report on Multinational Corporations in China will be released. The report comprehensively outlines China's opening-up policies, market opportunities and innovation prospects for the 15th Five-Year Plan. It seeks to help multinationals deepen their integration into China's industrial, supply and innovation chains, and share the benefits of its vast market, innovation achievements and institutional opening-up.

The summit explores new avenues for opening-up and collaborative development, striving to build a comprehensive ecosystem characterized by international connectivity, domestic coordination, and industrial integration. For global cooperation, it launches the first-ever Country & Enterprise Day.

Marking the 55th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Türkiye, the event features the inaugural 2026 China (Shandong)-Türkiye Exchange Day. Concurrently, a matchmaking session focusing on housing and urban-rural development between Shandong and ASEAN nations aims to chart new courses for infrastructure cooperation.

To foster regional coordination, the summit continues its Guest Province mechanism by inviting Sichuan Province to enhance cross-regional industrial chain collaboration. In parallel, a tailored equity cooperation platform featuring an "industry-finance-services" model is launched to drive in-depth integration between the service sector and the real economy.

Centered on service innovation, the summit shifts from passive response to proactive service delivery. It spotlights pilot initiatives aimed at expanding market access in the service sector and showcases best practices. Notably, the High-Quality Development Forum for Multinational Corporations will feature an inaugural policy briefing on intellectual property protection under the 15th Five-Year Plan. Through direct dialogue to address pressing corporate concerns, a full-cycle working loop encompassing "policy interpretation, demand collection, and targeted response" is established, thereby cultivating a stable, transparent, and predictable institutional environment for foreign investors.

A key highlight of the summit is the 2026 Qingdao International City Partner Dialogue. Executives from leading multinationals such as Louis Dreyfus, AstraZeneca, ZF, Accenture, and Bekaert gathered for in-depth discussions centered on the theme Strengthening Sci-Tech Innovation and Deepening Opening-up and Cooperation. The session concluded with an on-site signing ceremony, securing a series of two-way investment projects.

China continues to expand opening-up in the service sector this year. The Ministry of Commerce is set to steadily implement pilot opening initiatives in value-added telecommunications, biotechnology, and wholly foreign-owned hospitals, alongside improving the regulatory framework for the cross-border trade in services negative list. Earlier this year, Shandong unveiled its Ten Major Partnership Initiatives aimed at deepening opening-up. The province will roll out opening-up pilots in Qingdao, facilitate cross-border equity mergers and acquisitions, expand Qualified Foreign Limited Partner (QFLP) operations, and introduce a range of high-quality investment opportunities and cooperation projects spanning internet platforms, new energy vehicles, and semiconductors.

SOURCE Information Office of the People's Government of Shandong Province