More than 300 delegates from the ministries and enterprises of high technology, advanced manufacturing, technology services and finance attended a conference at the Qingdao high-tech zone in March aiming to attract investment from Beijing.

The high-tech zone in the port city of East China's Shandong province has experienced rapid economic growth and development in recent years. Its overall industrial output value last year was 26.53 billion yuan ($4.05 billion), up 12 percent year-on-year, of which 62.7 percent was from high-tech industries.

Sun Lijie, vice-mayor of Qingdao and Party chief of the high-tech zone, said during the meeting that the zone will focus on industrializing research and development results from State-run institutes, as the cooperation between Qingdao and Beijing enters a golden period as the Shandong peninsula's ocean economic zone is upgraded as a national strategy.

The Qingdao high-tech zone signed agreements on 36 projects in finance, software, intelligent manufacturing, new materials and bio-pharmacy with partners in Beijing during the meeting, valued at 12.7 billion yuan.

Ge Ke, chief executive officer of Beijing Kingsoft Office Software, said: "Qingdao not only has an ideal living environment, but also an ideal business environment fit for founding new ventures.

"The high-tech zone of Qingdao has many famous enterprises and mature policies in talents and funds to support the growing of new enterprises. That's why Kingsoft has made its roots there for many years," Ge said.

About 200 enterprises from Beijing have set up branches in the high-tech zone in Qingdao.

Sun said: "An important reason that the high-tech zone actively supports the development of companies like Kingsoft is that the government pays attention to promoting new technology innovation as well as the development of small and micro businesses."

Small and micro enterprises will play an increasingly important role in China's national economy, and innovation, Sun added.

Sinochem Group plans to invest $5 billion to build a software industry park in the high-tech zone. Tsinghua Holdings has earmarked about 8 billion yuan to build a new-technology industry park in the zone. The Beijing Science Park Development Group also plans to invest 6 billion yuan to construct a pharmaceutical industry park in the zone.

The high-tech zone's venture capital investment company has established eight equity investment foundations and supported more than 30 projects in the zone.