With its advantageous location, unique cityscape and comfortable standard of living, Qingdao, a coastal city in east China's Shandong Province, is attracting more people from the Republic of Korea (ROK) to live and work.

    Moon Byoung Soon, 58, is satisfied with his life in Qingdao. Hesaid likes the city where people live a lifestyle similar to that of the ROK.

    He opened a Korean restaurant in Qingdao 10 years ago and business has been profitable. He now runs four Korean restaurants, a hotel and a vegetable production base in Qingdao.

    More than 40,000 people from ROK now live and work in Qingdao.

    Other people from ROK have opened shops selling stationery or ornaments, bars and cafes as well as car repair centers in the city.

    To date, Qingdao has approved 5,331 ROK-funded enterprises, accounting for one-third of the total ROK investment in Shandong.

    Qingdao used 1.81 billion US dollars of ROK investment last year, up 104.3 percent over the previous year and accounting for 45.14 percent of the total foreign funds Qingdao used.

    Moon Byoung Soon spends at least two days at his home in Seoul each month. He said regular flights between Qingdao and Seoul had make it easier to travel between the two cities. The one-hour flight was launched in 1994.

    Now, 37 flights are available between Qingdao and three ROK cities of Seoul, Taegu and Pusan each week, and four flights are available between Qingdao and Inchon each week.

    The other big attraction for ROK people may be the great efforts Qingdao has made to create every possible convenience for their daily life.

    Local TV stations have launched Korean programs, shopping centers have employed staff who speak Korean, newspapers have Korean pages and hospitals have service signboards in Korean.

    Qingdao has opened an international school specially for ROK children, providing classes right from kindergarten through to senior middle school.

    The course curricula come from the ROK, and Chinese and Englishare also taught.

    More than 1,400 of the 1,600-plus foreign children at local schools are from the ROK.

    A businessman from Seoul said he had traveled to many cities around the world and he was impressed with businesses and servicesin Qingdao.