Today, shipping has become an irreplaceable main way for the development of world goods trade. Qingdao, as a new fulcrum of the “Belt and Road” and a new platform for international cooperation, has also accelerated the construction of an international shipping hub focusing on Northeast Asia in a bid to forge an international shipping center with the approval of the Qingdao area of Shandong Pilot Free Trade Zone.
Shanghai leads China in building international shipping centers, and possesses a perfect airline network of around the world. Qingdao’s learning about the modern service industry from Shanghai is undoubtedly a major opportunity to help build itself an international shipping center.
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The advancing times makes the importance of the ocean increasingly prominent. Under such a general trend, the creation of an international shipping center has become more urgent in ocean cities represented by Qingdao.
Internationally renowned shipping centers, such as London, New York, Rotterdam, Singapore, and Shanghai, all of which have large, modern deep-water port groups and a strong shipping service system, can also stimulate the development of logistics, international trade, international finance and other modern service industries, thereby propelling the level and influence leap of the cities where they are located.
For this reason, in 2019, Qingdao, under the guidance of the national strategy and with the approval of the Qingdao area of China (Shandong) Pilot Free Trade Zone, proposed to step up the building of an international shipping hub focusing on Northeast Asia in a bid to forge an international shipping center.
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In 2020, a more dynamic Qingdao is locking eyes on the modern service industry. Qingdao sent the first batch of 51 cadres to Shanghai to start professional training with more professional and targeted goals and tasks the other day. The goal is also very clear-cut, i.e., to study Shanghai’s modern service industry.
Shanghai has always been the pacesetter of China’s reform and opening up and the pioneer of innovative development whose innovation and experience in many fields are worthy of reference for Qingdao.
On the one hand, it is Shanghai that is China’s leading international shipping center. In the 2019 Xinhua-Baltic International Shipping Center Development Index released in July 2019, Shanghai ranked fourth; in August 2019, Shanghai Port ranked first in World's Best Connected Ports Ranking 2019 released by UNCTAD; as of the end of 2019, the container throughput of Shanghai Port has ranked first in the world for 10 consecutive years. It can be said safely that Shanghai is the best model for Qingdao International Shipping Finance Center’s benchmarking study.
On the other hand, learning from maters and experience in the modern service industry can provide an well-established development thinking for Qingdao to explore the fields of logistics, international trade, international finance, and shipping auxiliary industries and etc..
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From the perspective of the construction of the Shanghai International Shipping Center, it not only focuses on the development of shipping and gives full play to the resource advantages of "land, sea, air and railway", but also strives for the perfect parallel connection of various transportation facilities, expanding the application of multimodal transport. For Qingdao, it is also necessary to accelerate the construction of airports, rail transit, etc., especially the construction of 4F international airports, forming a complete modern intermodal transportation system. At the same time, for Qingdao with the fulcrum positioning of the “Belt and Road”, using modern service industry as a new engine for development, developing modern service industry to enhance the cohesion of global resource elements of international shipping centers is an intrinsic requirement for enhancing influence.
In addition, compared with Shanghai, Singapore, London and other places, it can be found that judging whether a port city can be recognized an international shipping center, apart from its infrastructure hardware, depends on whether marine-related professional services are more easily accessible and whether it is easy to do business, etc. In this regard, Qingdao also needs to strengthen a modern service industry system and constantly improve the policies related to international shipping centers.
In addition, Qingdao should give full play to its role in the construction of the "Belt and Road" New Asia-Europe Continental Bridge Economic Corridor and maritime cooperation, accordingly gathering more different types of industries and enterprises and helping to brand the city's business card of the international shipping center.
Since it is in such an age when thousands of sails race together that we live, cities have to be more fearless in the face of wind and waves. Perhaps Qingdao, located on the shore of the Yellow Sea, can crack the code for the construction of an international shipping center on the glittering Huangpu River bank.
