A conference held for the 30th anniversary of Shandong province's sister city program celebrated twinning with 162 cities in 48 countries since its start in 1979.

Qingdao in Shandong province and Shimonoseki in Japan became sister cities back at the very start, embarking Shandong's program of building friendship and cooperation with cities across the world.

From 1979 to 2009, sister cities brought a great number of economic and technological projects to Shandong.

Among these projects are Yamaguchi Bank, the first foreign-funded bank in Shandong province, a $400 million paper project co-developed by America-based International Paper and Jining Sun Paper and an $830 million project between Germany-based Man Group and Sinotruk in Shandong.

Most technologies and species introduced from sister cities such as mulching film, water-saving irrigation and Fuji apple are still widely used in Shandong.

Apart from economic cooperation, more than 430 cultural performances have been staged during these 30 years, raising Shandong's profile as a cultural province around the world.

Summer and winter camps are held among schools to promote communication among young people. To date, Shandong has 101 schools including colleges and primary schools establishing friendly interschool relationship with 518 schools in 33 countries.