Qingdao ranked seventh in circulation competitiveness among 33 large and medium-sized cities around China, according to the 2011 China’s urban circulation competitiveness report, which was jointly released by the Circulation Research Center of Chinese People’s University and Distribution Productivity Promotion Center of China Commerce. The competitiveness has greatly sharpened in 2011, compared to 2010 when Qingdao ranked 12th in the report.

The assessment is based on ten aspects comprehensively. Qingdao ranked first in the index of structural upgrading. It shows that the circulation industry in Qingdao has continuously optimized and taken up significant portion of the urban economic system. The city also ranks fifth, sixth and eighth in the indexes of factor input, scale and infrastructure construction, and logistics distribution respectively. Those figures show that the city has been built into a large-sale commodity distribution center which makes full use of its multi-level transportation system including ports, railways, highways and airports.