The coastal city of Yantai signed 20 projects with a total investment of 35 billion yuan ($5.32 billion) at the city's promotional conference during the ongoing third China International Import Expo in Shanghai on Nov 6.

The projects are in a wide range of fields, including intelligent manufacturing, industrial Internet, headquarters economy, and environmental protection.

Among them, seven foreign-funded projects were inked with an investment of $1.3 billion. All projects will be implemented within one year.

The Yantai Forum on International Economic and Trade Cooperation invited more than 100 executives from the world's top 500 companies and representatives of business institutions including Altai Group, Linde Group, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Marubeni Corporation, and Shanghai Electric.

Zhang Dailing, vice-mayor of Yantai, delivered a keynote speech and outlined the achievements that Yantai has made in recent years.

To date, a total of 14,000 projects from 102 countries and regions have invested in Yantai, with a total value of nearly $40 billion.

Between January and September this year, the city’s GDP reached 546.2 billion yuan, up 1.9 percent. The added value of industries above designated size increased by 4.4 percent.