After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, it was successively put under administration of Yishui Administrative Office, Jiaozhou Administrative Office and Linyi Administrative Office. It was upgraded to city in March of 1985, to local level city in June of 1989, and owned district and county in December of 1992.

Sun Square

Comprehensive Strength

In recent years, the economy has developed sustainably and rapidly. The comprehensive strength has been overtly boosted and the economic structure has been optimized. The GDP of the city reached 77,314 billion yuan at the end of 2008, up by 15.1% over the previous year, of which the added value of primary industry was 8.274 billion yuan, up by 5.7%, the secondary industry 41.973 billion yuan, up by 17.5% and the tertiary industry 27.067 billion yuan, up by 15.1%.

A passenger-cargo liner to South Korean Pyongtaek

In 2008, the local fiscal revenue was 3.633 billion yuan and Rizhao had accomplished the fixed asset investment in industrial enterprise above designated size (i.e. all state-owned enterprises and those non-state-owned enterprises with an annual sales income over 5 million yuan) of 51.843 billion yuan and the total volume of import and export reached 9.2 billion yuan, being listed in top four of Shandong Province the first time. The urban per capita disposable income was 14,409 yuan and rural per capita net income was 6,038 yuan; The ratio by three types of industry was adjusted from 13.7 : 50.9 : 35.4 of last year to 10.7 : 54.3 : 35.

Owning the reputation of “two ports sailing to the world and one bridge links Euroasia”, Rizhao has great geographic advantages. There are two port areas—Shijiu and Lanshan port areas with deep water and broad bay, wide landed-base areas, free from silt and ice because of mild climate.

The construction of Rizhao Port was started in 1982, and it came into operation in 1986. Being one of key coastal ports of key national construction and development project, Rizhao Port was nominated as oriental bridgehead of the New Eurasian Continental Bridges in 1995 and it has been listed in China’s 21st Century Agenda on Prioritizing Project Plan together with economic belts along the bridge. After the construction and development of 20 years, it is not the wharf with coal output only any longer and has become a national important port and raw material distribution center of multiple functions. At present, it owns 37 productive berths with handling capacity of 300,000 tons and assessed capacity of 120.11 million tons. In 2008, the port handled 0.151 billion tons of cargo, up by 15.6% over last year, ranking the second ports that handle equal to or more than 100 million tons in Shandong Province. In June of 2003, the sailing route for container liner between Rizhao Port and Pyongtaek Port of Korea was opened. In October of 2006, Rizhao Port Corporation successfully became listed company. In March of 2009, the future plan of Rizhao Port got national approval and it will construct 280 deep-water berths with annual handling capacity of 0.6 billion tons.