China to promote high-quality development of marine economy

BEIJING, June 13 (Xinhua) -- China will strengthen construction of smart ocean projects and promote the high-quality development of the marine economy.

Relevant official said that China will focus on the supply-side structural reform, strive to improve the level of marine development and utilization, and enhance the marine ecological environment.

According to an outline of the national land planning (from 2016 to 2030) issued by the State Council, China's cabinet, China will build a benign and interactive pattern of developing land and sea, improve the development of marine resources, and accelerate the construction of maritime power. Meanwhile, efforts would be made to cultivate a new batch of marine economic growth poles and promote the formation of three marine economic circles in the north, east, and south of China.

At present, Shandong, Guangdong, Zhejiang and other provinces have successively issued plans to vigorously develop the marine economy, with the plans covering marine information construction, emerging marine industries and other aspects.

For example, Shandong province has recently released an action plan for building itself into a strong maritime province by 2035, with breakthroughs in ocean-related information data, marine emerging industries, marine resources and environmental protection, and marine ecological animal husbandry.

In terms of protecting marine resources and environment, Shandong will formulate an overall plan for the protection and utilization of coastal zones, implement overall land and sea plans, and scientifically lay out production, living, and ecological space.

In the following five years, the water qualification rate of important marine functional areas in the province is expected to exceed 90 percent. In terms of ecological pastures, in the following three years, Shandong will create 70 demonstration parks for marine pastures at or above the provincial level. The total revenue of marine ranches in the province will reach 300 billion yuan.

Recently, the Shanghai Pudong New Area, Ningbo, Nantong, and Zhoushan have signed a strategic cooperation agreement on the marine industrial parks (bases) in the Yangtze River Delta region to jointly establish cross-regional coordination platform covering marine-related talents, science and technology, finance, and projects.

Earlier, Zhejiang province issued an implementation plan for major marine construction projects. Under the plan, Zhejiang will invest more than one trillion yuan in the construction of marine economy in the coming years. To be specific, Zhejiang will put in place 348 major marine economic construction projects in 2018, with an annual investment of 132.6 billion yuan.

In addition, according to the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020) for marine economy issued by Guangdong province, by 2020, Guangdong’s marine production value will exceed 2.2 trillion yuan, with an average annual increase of 8 percent, accounting for 20 percent of the province’s GDP.

The development of marine informatization is entering a period of great strategic opportunities. To accelerate breakthroughs in the core technologies in the field of oceanic information, efforts have to be made to strengthen the deep integration of next-generation information technologies such as cloud computing and big data in the marine sector, and promote the formation of an intelligent marine information system, said He Guangshun, head of National Marine Information Center.