[Shandong plans to build 5,040 kilometers of scenic roads]Recently, Shandong Provincial Department of Transport issued the province's first special tourism transportation layout plan -- Shandong Provincial Tourism Transportation Network Main Framework Layout Plan (2023-2030) (referred to as "Plan"), focusing on the Great Wall, Grand Canal, Yellow River National Cultural Park (Shandong section), along the Yellow Sea, Bohai Sea, Yimeng Revolutionary old base area and other cultural and tourism resource enrichment areas. To systematically construct the province's fast-forward and slow-travel tourism transportation network, promote the integrated development of transportation and tourism, and strongly support the construction of Shandong Demonstration Zone, a transportation powerhouse. Shandong will form five theme corridors, namely the Qianli Coastal corridor in the east, the Lufeng Canal in the west, the Red Yimeng Corridor in the south, the Yellow River entering the sea in the north, and the Great Wall Tracing in the middle, which will constitute the overall layout of the tourist scenic corridor around Shandong. The total scale of scenic byway is about 6580 kilometers, of which 5040 kilometers are highways and 1540 kilometers are dike-top roads and municipal roads. In addition, Shandong will also plan to build a number of scenic roads to further smooth the last kilometer of the scenic area. Editor/Xu Shengpeng
On April 3, 2026, the domestically developed maximum diameter 13.2-meter hard rock TBM by CCCC Tianhe started construction in Changshu. The machine is equipped with 7600 domestically produced rare earth special steel main bearings developed by the Institute of Metals, Chinese Academy of Sciences, with a rated life of over 15000 hours and performance exceeding imports. This move marks China Communications Construction Corporation's first achievement of 100% localization of core components for ultra large diameter tunneling machines, completely bridging the last mile of national production of major underground engineering equipment in China.Editor/Cheng Liting
At the Export to China SCO Choice Forum, Kazakh companies signed a $125 million agricultural export agreement with Chinese partners. Changsha Kaliev, the Minister of Trade of Kazakhstan, led a delegation to visit Shandong to deepen industrial and logistics cooperation. As the largest trading partner, the bilateral trade volume between China and Kazakhstan is expected to increase from 41 billion US dollars in 2023 to 48.7 billion US dollars in 2025, with Shandong's trade volume reaching 2.2 billion US dollars. Both sides are shifting from scale expansion to quality and efficiency improvement, with a focus on promoting the export of high value-added, non resource, and green technology products to ensure supply chain stability.Editor/Cheng Liting