Rizhao City
I. Facts about Rizhao
The name of Rizhao originated from an old saying that "It
was the first place to get the sunshine". The city (E118°35-119°39′,
N35°04-36°02′), is located in the middle of the east coast in
China and the southern wing of Shandong Peninsula. It borders
the Yellow Sea on the east, facing to Korea and Japan across the
sea, adjoins Qingdao in the north, Lianyungang (a city of Jiangsu
province) in the south and is approachable to China’s inland provinces
of the far west. It has Donggang District, Wulian County, Ju County
and Lanshan Office under its jurisdiction, with an area of 53.68
million sq. km and a population of 2.7 million.
Rizhao, is the connecting point between the coastal axis and
the Economic Belt of the Continental Bridge along the Railway
of Rizhao-Xi'an. As the Eastern Bridgehead of the New Euro-Asia
Continental Bridge, it has rising potentialities of international
development.
As a beautiful seaport, Rizhao enjoys mild and pleasant climate,
which belongs to temperate wet monsoon climate. Its annual average
temperature is 12.6℃. The city has 100 km long coastline, 60 thousand
hectare shallow sea with broad water areas and over 5000 hectare
shoal alongside the coast, annual frost free period of 213 days,
annual sunshine of 2532.9 hours, and annual average rainfall of
916 mm.
II. Infrastructure
Transportation: Rizhao has developed communication system and
convenient transportation in ocean shipping, railway, and highway.
The 3D transportation network of sea, road and air has been set
up.
Sea Transportation: The two first-class open ports Rizhao Port
and Lanshan Port have scheduled lines to the countries and regions
like Japan, Korea and Hong Kong. With deep water and broad bay,
the two ports are neither cold nor silty and free of typhoon’s
molestation, thus enjoying the superior conditions of port building
and shipping. A total of 23 berths are built in the two ports
with the handling capacity up to 22.6 million tons. Rizhao Port
is among the nation’s top 10 comprehensive ports, one of the top
10 ports for coal export in the world and the key hub port constructed
by the state. At the rear of the quay lies a broad land with a
complete variety of loading and unloading machines, which are
able to provide system control and sequence interlock. The capacity
of handling goods of Rizhao Port has exceeded 20 million tons.
Lanshan Port has five overall general berths with a capacity of
5,000-25,000 tons and one berth for liquefied chemicals with a
handling capability of 50,000 tons has been put into operation.
The port has an annual handling capacity amounting to 2.6 million
tons with advance facilities.
Railway Transportation: The Rizhao-Xi’an railway intersects with
Longhai railroad in Xi’an, is an artery connecting the east with
the west. The railroad extends westward out of China and arrives
at Rotterd Port in Holand to form a new Euro-Asia Continental
Bridge. The special railway lines, Rizhao-Beijing and Rizhao-Zhengzhou,
have been open to traffic.
Road Transportation: The highways radiate to all directions.
There are National highways 204 and 206 and five provincial standard
highways such as 016 and 048 crisscross. Presently, a highway
network has been established. It goes to all directions, with
country and village roads as the backing, nation-level and province-level
highways as backbone, the ports and goods yards, as the hub.
Aviation: There are 8 aviation agencies in Rizhao engaging in
passenger transport and freight. They can provide varieties of
returned passenger transport tickets from Qingdao to main cities
in China, Qingdao to korea and Honkong, Jinan , Lianyun Port to
the main cities in China. Moreover, they engage in the freight
transportation from Qingdao to all the places in China. It is
168 km from Rizhao to Qingdao Airport and 120 km from Rizhao to
Lianyungang Airport both taking 2 hours’ by car.
Telecommunication: Telecommunication is the key basic industry
with preferential treatment. The program-controlled exchange capacity
is 203,000 sets, which can dial directly to more than 250 countries
and regions. The municipal mobile telecommunication roaming network
and automatic page network have been set up, covering business
such as Express, magnetic card telephone, videophone for meetings,
telegram for sending regards, communication in groups and 168
info consultation service.
Electricity Supply: Rizhao has formed the 35 k converter power
supply network with 220 kv electricity source and 110 kv volt-ampere
framework. Rizhao Thermal Power Plant (a joint venture), capable
of 2.4 million kw is under construction. In 2000, two 35 km generating
units had been put into operation.
Water Supply: Rizhao is one of the areas abundant in water resources
in Shandong and eastern China. There is a total of 2.741 billion
cu. m water resource. There are rivers and reservoirs with and
15 water purification works. The comprehensively qualified water
accounts for 98% and is accessible to 95% of the areas in the
city. The first phase of Quishan Water Works, which is capable
of 100 thousand tons, has been put into operation.
III. Natural Resources
(1) Mineral Resources
Rizhao has rich mineral resources. Over a dozen of iron ores such
as gold, silver, copper and sulfur and stones like limestone,
guanidine stone, quartzite, marble serpentine and barite are under
exploitation and utilization. Among the resources, the majority
is building materials, which enjoy high quality, large quantity
and variety, for example, granite, limestone, marble serpentine,
andalusite, asbestos and yellow sand. Most part of the city abounds
in granite, which is among the best materials in building and
ornamentation and for which the city enjoys fame at home and abroad
with 3 billion cu. m reserves. The reserves of limestone are up
to 1.5 billion tons. In Shandong, Wulian andalusite, a rare mineral
in the world, is only produced in Rizhao, where has 215 tons of
proven reserves.
(2) Products:
Rizhao has been being regarded as a fish and rice base. It is
a major grain and oil production base and lean-meat pig husbandry
base in Shandong Province. Rizhao teems with wheat, corn, rice,
peanut, cotton, yellow tobacco, tea, silk cocoon, apple, hawthorn,
chestnut and grape. It has wood reserve of 1.95 million cu. m
and the woodland covers 33.7% of the land. There are a variety
of poultries in large quantity.
(3) Aquatic Products:
Rizhao is a major base and colleting and distributing center of
aquatic products in Shandong Province. It is a famous aquatic
plant fostering base, with the first national base for keeping
prawns and shrimps in winter and cuttlefish proliferation. There
are 86 species of fishes, 43 families and 3 classes and teems,
with the precious seafood such as prawn, scallop, hard clam, and
abalone. Freshwater farming is developed to raise fishes with
high economical value such as carp, crucian, crab and soft-shelled
turtle. Rizhao’s aquatic industry is scientifically strong. There
are 14 institutes doing aquatic research, marketing and educating,
with over 30 scientific research results and 7 national patents.
(4) Tourism:
Rizhao City is a seaport with a long history and abundant natural
and cultural resources. With flat and broad beach, fine sand and
clear water, it is a natural summer resort for holiday, vacation.
Dashawa Seaside National Forest Park is along the northern coast
of the city. The most famous historic relics are: Yaowangcheng,
Guliangcheng and Heshan Precipice( with the famous carved Chinese
characters “Rizhao”) . “The No. 1 Gingko Tree” lives in Fulai
Mountain of Ju County. She has been testified to be over 3.5 thousand
year old. Wulian Mountain is another place of interest, all of
which have become the precious resources to develop the ancient
culture tourism.
(5) Labor resource
The population structure of Rizhao belongs to the grown-up kind.
Young people (accounting for 26.34%) and the middle aged (accounting
for 61.94%) are the major part of labor force in support. The
city population is an adult population structure and a large proportion
for the middle and young age. The city is rich in labor force
resources with a great potential of rational development of it.
IV. Economic Development
1. Agriculture
Agriculture in Rizhao is historically advanced. It is the province’s
major production base of grain, peanut, fruit, tea and yellow
tobacco. The overall productivity and economic performance in
agriculture are rising fast in recent years for the increasing
investment in cropland basic construction and the generalization
and application of varieties of practical science and technology.
So afr, the city has formed an agricultural production system
with grain and oil production as the base and fruit forestry,
animal husbandry, fishery and economic plants as four pillars.
A group of production bases of agricultural sideline have been
established. Among these, the tea planting area and yield both
ranks the first in Shandong Province and earns the fame of “The
No.1 Tea in the North”. Rizhao City has formed a new frame with
the simultaneous development of farming, forestry, animal husbandry,
sideline production and fishery and the harmonious development
of agriculture, industry and trade.
2. Industry
There is a complete industrial system with 39 sections, over 90
departments and more than 500 varieties of products. The main
industries are machine building, building materials, textile,
chemical, food, electron, power, papermaking and printing. The
rice-hulling machine, hardware instrument, mannitol, highly elastic
silk with terylene, 80 g paper with glue on both sides, general
silicon 425# cement, steel ball, chain, granite plank, stone carving,
silk, handicraft, aquatic products, poultry products, fruit and
vegetables produced here enjoy a good reputation both at home
and abroad.
3. Tertiary Industry
The tertiary industry develops quickly in Rizhao with 4 layers,
12 categories and over 20 trades. The number of business and tourist
service agencies dramatically increases. These agencies are heading
for medium and high grade. A service system is basically shaped
with the state-owned business as the head and the collective,
individual and private-owned economies as the body. Catering trade
is in the ascendant. There are over 380 hotels, cafes, restaurants
and Karaoke rooms with an accommodation of more than 10,000, which
basically meet the living need of the floating population and
the citizens. Real estate industry develops fast. There is an
upsurge of real estate development throughout the city, especially
in Rizhao Development Zone and Lanshan Development Zone and the
construction of relevant facilities in groups has been accomplished.
There are a lot of investors from home and abroad come to invest
and set up corporations.
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