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 (600,000 US dollars) in annual sales, including a truck manufacturer, a car maker, four bus producers, six plants for refitting vehicles, and a number of auto-parts enterprises.

In 2003, the city turned out 66,000 heavy-duty trucks and 300 buses, as well as refitted 7,000 vehicles, reporting a total 22 billion yuan (2.65 billion dollars) in sales.

Qingdao has become a major truck maker in China with an annual production capacity of 80,000.

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 in 2008. The project willadd Qingdao to the list of China's top bus production bases.

In total, Shandong Province last year manufactured 300,000 automobiles, 900,000 motors, and 2 million vehicles for farm use, as well as refitted 60,000 automobiles, reaping 82 billion yuan (9.87 billion dollars) in sales.

The automobile industry has become a pillar sector for economicdevelopment in Shandong, which was ranked third in the country in terms of the gross domestic product.

Source: Xinhua