Called “the fountain city”, Jinan is Shandong’s provincial seat and political, economic, cultural, S&T, education and financial center, as well as an coastal open-up city as approved by the state and a vice provincial-level city. A city with a long history behind it, Jinan is a famous historical and cultural city as announce by the State Council. Containing many springs within its boundaries, it is thus called the “the fountain city”. In 2008, Jinan’s GDP reached RMB 301.742 billion, a 13% increase over the previous year, with an average disposable income of RMB 20802.2 against a population of 6.0485 million.
Jinan is one of the important industrial cities of China. Electronic information, transportation equipment, home electronic appliances, machinery-making, bioengineering and textile and garment are Jinan’s six leading industries with nationwide-crucial positions and excellent conditions for absorbing international industries, especially manufacturing industrial transfers. In recent years, Jinan is focusing on the building of a cultural industry development platform for a cultural industry network, data base of cultural industry projects, experiment base of animation industry in the fountain city, and the convention and exhibition for cultural industry, forming an initial cultural industry development pattern with parallel growth of press and media, publication and distribution, performance and recreation, animation games, cultural tourism, ad and convention/exhibition etc .