8 new Chinese Famous Brands EIGHT trademarks, including Langxietai and Huaren were approved to become Chinese Famous Brands recently. At present, Qingdao has 42 Chinese Famous Brands, 271 Provincial Famous Brands and 265 city-level Famous Brands. The annual output value of these companies totaled 470.8 billion yuan, increasing by 13 percent. So far, Qingdao has seen 131 trademarks registered through the Madrid International Trademark registration system. In May last year, the city was approved to become a model city in piloting the country’s trademark strategy. Last year, the number of registered trademarks reached 12, 400 in the city. Among these, the number of trademarks for agricultural products was more than 7,300, including Jiaozhou Cabbage, Laoshan Tea, Dazeshan Grapes and Majiagou Celery. (Wang Yuanyuan, Qingbao) Blue economy forum to be held in October THE 2011 China (Qingdao) Blue Economy Development International Summit Forum will be held in Qingdao from Oct. 28 to 29. Many experts and government officials in the areas will be invited to the forum. The forum is themed technology innovation and industrial development and it will discuss the development and construction of the blue economy in Shandong Peninsula. The forum will not only promote the area’s development in the blue economy but also improve the city’s international reputation. (Wang Yuanyuan, Qingbao) Biological medicine base built AN INDUSTRIAL base for ocean biology technology and medicine will be built at Qingdao Hi-tech Zone soon, according to an agreement signed at the 9th China (Qingdao) International New Drugs Innovation Technology and Industrialization Summit Forum held in Qingdao recently. According to the agreement, the base will help Qingdao become a leading city in blue biological medicine areas. (Wang Yuanyuan, Fu Jun) ? Agricultural machinery helps increase efficiency ?QINGDAO sent out more than 200,000 agricultural machines to help farmers with the harvest this autumn, which had largely increased productivity. There are 600 new machines for corn this year, bringing the total number of corn machines to 5,000. With help from the machines, the amount of the peanuts and corn collected in a day had multiplied by about 50. ?(Wang Yuanyuan, Liu Kunfeng, Ren Hongzhen) | 