More than 40 years of endeavors has built the coastal city of Qingdao, East China"s Shandong Province, into a major automobile production base in China. Qingdao is now home to some 100 automobile and auto-parts makers each with more than 5 million yuan (US$600,000) in annual sales, including four bus producers, a car maker, a truck manufacturer, six plants for refitting vehicles, and a number of auto-parts enterprises; meanwhile, the city has signed contracts with the Shanghai Automobile Group Company and Sweden"s Volvo on a joint project, which is expected to produce annually 3,000 buses.
Shandong Province last year manufactured more than 300,000 automobiles and 900,000 motors and earned more than 82 billion yuan (US$9.87 billion) in sales. The automobile industry has become a pillar sector for economic development in Shandong.