Niu Haitao, vice-president and professor of Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University, shows how to conduct a long-distance operation with the aid of 5G technology during the expo. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

According to Zhao, Qingdao is speeding up the construction of a competitive health industry cluster and striving to create a national health industry innovation demonstration zone.

Over the past two years, Qingdao's big health industry has made great strides. In 2019, the added value of the city's medical and health industry reached 57.53 billion yuan ($9.01 billion).

At present, the city has introduced and constructed 21 large hospital projects with a total investment of 29.8 billion yuan. The average life expectancy of local citizens is 81.16 years, with main health indicators reaching the average level of developed countries in the world.