A TOTAL of 17 of China’s top 500 enterprises set up their headquarters in Qingdao between 2002 and 2011, ranking Qingdao eighth ranked city in the country (Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Chongqing not included). The other nine cities included Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Guangzhou, Ningbo, Jinan, Suzhou, Dalian and Xiamen. Nine Qingdao companies, such as Haier, Hisence, Liuhe, Qingdao Iron, Tsingtao Beer, Liqun and Qingdao Harbor, were listed on the country’s top 500 enterprises this year, which was the highest in Shandong Province. According to statistics, the added value of the city’s 273 leading companies had reached 77 billion yuan in the first half of this year, accounting for 27 percent of the city’s total GDP. Among these, the 106 manufacturing companies had made tax revenue of 2.927 billion yuan, increasing by 5.1 percent, while the 160 service companies had made tax revenue of 2.553 billion yuan, increasing by 20.99 percent. Construction of the headquarter buildings in Shinan, Shibei, Laoshan and Jiaonan districts were undergoing smoothly. In the first half of this year, 13 headquarter projects, including Qingdao Branch of Huaqiao Bank, Qingdao Branch of SinoPec, with a total investment of 20.44 billion yuan, signed contracts, increasing by 93 percent over the same period of last year. Twenty-three other projects with total contracted investments of 33.94 billion yuan were now under discussion. ?(Wang Yuanyuan, Shen Junlin) | 