In recent years, Qingdao's international "circle of friends" has been expanding. As of December 2024, Qingdao's total number of sister cities and friendly cooperation cities had expanded to 93 cities in 53 countries, forming a broad and deep international cooperation network.

With this growth in number of sister cities, Qingdao's role in promoting cultural exchanges, economic cooperation, and people-to-people interactions has become increasingly prominent, bringing more cooperation opportunities and external resources to the city's development.

In recent years, Qingdao has carried out many exemplary investment projects with its sister cities, involving key areas such as agriculture, technology, and manufacturing.

Projects include building ostrich farms, building high-tech agricultural parks and fresh-cut flower production bases using Israeli technology, investing $3.5 million in building a food export company, and collaborating with an Israeli company to build a cultural activity center project in Ness Ziona, the first architectural labor cooperation project between Qingdao and Israel.

In 2022, Qingdao  created a "Youth Qingdao" brand event, organizing cultural exchanges between Qingdao and young people from countries such as Russia, Belarus, and France through activities like "singing a song together" and exchanges of Chinese traditional culture and historical customs between Chinese and young people from around the world.

From 2020 to 2025, Qingdao and Long Beach in the United States held five consecutive sessions of a student pen pal exchange program, providing a platform for young people from both cities to connect through written correspondence and online communication.

A China-Russia youth friendship art exhibition is held. [Photo/Qilu News]