On October 30, China (Shandong) Pilot Free Trade Zone and Hainan Free Trade Port officially signed a strategic cooperation agreement, marking another milestone in the cooperation between the two sides.

At the signing ceremony, the two sides signed a total of 10 projects in four aspects: zone-port cooperation, area cooperation, institutional cooperation, and enterprise cooperation, and made it clear that they would strengthen cooperation in healthcare and elderly care, marine industry, international trade, think tank platform and other aspects to together build a bridge for enterprises to connect with the international market.

Since 2021, the areas and economic functional zones of Shandong and Hainan have piloted joint exploration around common industrial demands and development positioning. In August of that year, the China (Shandong) Pilot Free Trade Zone Yantai Area and the Yazhou Bay Science and Technology City in Hainan took the lead in signing a strategic cooperation framework agreement and achieved positive results. In March this year, during the Boao Forum for Asia, Shandong and Hainan provinces reached an intention to further deepen cooperation. Within only half a year, the two provinces achieved consensus on cooperation and crystallized it into a framework agreement on coordination between China (Shandong) Pilot Free Trade Zone and Hainan Free Trade Port and 37 cooperation tasks.