Chen Xi, CEO of CLAAS Agricultural Machinery (Shandong) Co Ltd. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The fifth Qingdao Multinationals Summit will be held on Aug 27-29 in Qingdao city in East China's Shandong province.

Chen Xi, CEO of CLAAS Agricultural Machinery (Shandong) Co Ltd – the Shandong unit of giant German international agricultural machinery manufacturer CLAAS – recently said in an interview with China Daily that he hoped to leverage the platform of the summit.

This would be in order to engage in efficient exchanges with other foreign-funded enterprises and gain in-depth insights into relevant industry policies.

On Shandong's business environment, Chen observed that as one of the first provinces to open up in China, Shandong's supplier system and its industrial level have significant advantages nationwide.

He hoped that in the future, Shandong would continue to focus on attracting investment and supporting the growth and expansion of enterprises, especially foreign-funded enterprises.

CLAAS began investing in Gaomi in Weifang city, Shandong province in 2014. In recent years, CLAAS has initiated industry-academia-research collaborations with vocational and technical schools in the province.

Chen said he believes that its Gaomi factory is not only CLAAS' production and manufacturing center, but also a critical hub for its global research and development, sales and end-user training.

As a century-old German family business, CLAAS introduced the German dual vocational education system to systematically improve employee skills and competencies.

"Currently, Weifang city in Shandong has a well-developed system of parts suppliers, with many vocational training schools – providing a good environment for training engineers and frontline production technicians," Chen said.

"Based on CLAAS' long-term investment strategy in China, we can see that China's agricultural machinery sector has made significant progress over the past 20 years, becoming the fastest country to achieve mechanization globally. We also hold a positive outlook on the long-term development prospects of the Chinese market," Chen added.