The China-South Korea Industrial Park in Yantai, Shandong province has attracted attention from both Chinese and South Korean media organizations.

On Sept 16, a group of journalists and bloggers visited Yantai to get idea of city's business cooperation with South Korea. They focused on the construction of China-South Korea Industrial Park and hoped to learn how Yantai makes use of the China-South Korea Free Trade Agreement (FTA) to drive the city's economic development.

The group visited some South-Korea-based enterprises in Yantai including DSME Shandong Co Ltd and LG Display to better understand its development plan, with many opportunities brought by the FTA.

The industrial park is expected to become the best investment destination in China for South Korean enterprises, the largest distribution center for South Korean goods in China and also a platform to keep pace with China's Belt and Road Initiative.

Trade between Yantai and South Korea increased from $800 million in 2001 to $10.97 billion in 2014, up 20.2 percent year-on-year. Yantai has the highest trade volume with South Korea among all the cities in Shandong and the number accounts for one-third of Shandong's total trade.

"Yantai is geographically close to South Korea, so the FTA will have more impact on Shandong," said Zhang Jingang, an editor of qingdaonews.com. "I also wish that the visit will help me find out more changes in Shandong brought by the FTA," he added.

China and South Korea signed a bilateral FTA in June 2015, under which, China will abolish tariffs on 91 percent of all South Korean products within 20 years, while South Korea will eliminate tariffs on 92 percent of all goods from China.

Edited by Shahnawaz Akhtar