Weifang, Shandong province, hosted leaders from government, business, and academia on Sept 11 for the 2025 industrial cooperation forum between China, Japan and South Korea. Now in its tenth year, the forum serves as a testament to the city's growing role as a hub for regional innovation and trade.

Participants explored key opportunities in emerging fields, including artificial intelligence, the digital economy, green development, and cross-border e-commerce. Discussions also focused on strengthening supply chain resilience under the RCEP framework and advancing trilateral free trade talks.

Lee Hee-sup, secretary-general of the Trilateral Cooperation Secretariat (TCS), noted the potential for the three countries to turn challenges into opportunities. He projected that by 2030, the three countries could collectively command nearly half of the global AI market, a third of clean technology, and more than a quarter of the biomedicine sector.

With its geographical and cultural proximity to Japan and South Korea, Shandong has long been a natural hub for collaboration. The province maintains more than 160 sister-city and partnership agreements with its neighbors, while trade and investment ties continue to expand. According to Saito Kenji, consul general of Japan in Qingdao, over 40 percent of Japan's agricultural imports from China come from Shandong, with Weifang playing a key role in food and technological innovation.

Over the past decade, the forum has catalyzed numerous projects in Weifang, from Japan-invested food processing initiatives to South Korea-backed smart cold-chain e-commerce operations. In 2024, Weifang's trade reached 16.9 billion yuan ($2.3 billion) with Japan and 47.6 billion yuan with South Korea, continuing an upward trend.

Looking ahead, participants agreed that continued innovation, green development, and joint ventures in third-party markets will be key to deepening trilateral cooperation. With its unique combination of location, expertise, and vision, Weifang is positioning itself as a vibrant hub where Northeast Asia's most dynamic economies can meet, collaborate, and grow together.