Marine industry in the coastal city of Yantai, East China's Shandong province sees robust development in 2022. [Photo/Shm News] 

Marine industry in the coastal city of Yantai, East China's Shandong province saw robust development in 2022. Statistics show that from January to November last year the output value of Yantai's marine economy exceeded 500 billion yuan ($74.4 billion), an increase of 18 percent year-on-year. It is estimated that the total gross ocean product will reach 230 billion yuan in 2022, an increase of 11 percent over 2021.

This year, Yantai will promote the high-quality development of its marine industry. It is expected that the city's gross ocean product will exceed 300 billion yuan by 2025, and account for 25 percent or above of the city's total GDP.

Yantai has developed and prospered through the sea. In 2022, the city made great efforts to promote the upgrading and transformation of its traditional marine industries. A three-year action plan was released last year to advance the high-quality development of the whole industrial chain of marine ranching.

Official statistics showed that the city had launched a total of 18 "Jinghai 001" deep-sea smart cages as of the end of 2022. Equipped with a 5G communication base station, ocean data observation system and artificial intelligence system, the smart cage is a platform for breeding deep-sea aquatic animals. It can also perform automatic breeding, underwater monitoring, and underwater net washing. The "Jinghai 001" smart cage is part of Yantai's project to build 100 deep-sea cages in the sea near Changdao Island and develop the area into the largest fishery breeding base in Asia.

Currently, the city has 45 marine ranches above the provincial level, ranking at the forefront of the country. Yantai is now home to 1.4 million mu (93,333.33 hectares) of such ranches.

Coastal and marine tourism in Yantai witnessed a fast recovery in 2022. The city accelerated its pace in the construction of the Yantai Sea World and the Zhifu Wonderland last year, when 15 projects related to marine tourism were signed, attracting a combined investment of 20 billion yuan.

Marine emerging industries including ocean engineering equipment, marine energy resources, marine biomedicine, and sea water desalination have boomed in Yantai. The world's largest semi-submersible yacht carrier built by Yantai CIMC Raffles for the Netherlands and the world's largest dual-fuel ice class roll-on roll-off ship built for Sweden were delivered to its customers successfully.

According to a report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in October last year, the country will develop the marine economy, protect the marine ecological environment, and step up efforts to build China into a strong maritime country. Yantai will respond actively to the country's call to promote the high-quality development of the marine economy, and it is expected that the total gross ocean product will reach 250 billion yuan this year.