The coastal city of Yantai in East China's Shandong province will accelerate its pace in promoting the development of the marine industry, with its gross ocean product expected to exceed 250 billion yuan ($36.3 billion) this year, according to news released by the city's marine development and fisheries bureau.

This year, the city will promote the construction of 46 key products related to the marine industry, support the integrated development of the digital economy in the marine sector, and explore new ways to promote the formation of a scientific statistical system for strategic emerging marine industries.

Local authorities said that the city will actively push for key projects on seawater desalination, with a number of demonstration zones and bases to be built for seawater desalination and development. It is expected that the daily desalination scale will exceed 100,000 metric tons this year.

Efforts will also be made to bolster the city's marine ranching. In recent years, Yantai has been speeding the development of its modern fishery industry and promoting the high-quality development of its marine-ranching demonstration area. The city has set up 46 marine ranches above the provincial level, with a total area of over 1.4 million mu (9.33 million hectares), covering a complete development pattern for marine ranching. This year, the city plans to build another 50,000 mu of marine ranching, increasing the total area to 1.45 million mu.

Yantai will also focus on the green transformation and upgrading of modern marine fisheries, with two modern fishery parks to be built in the the city's Laizhou and Huang-Bohai New Area, aiming to attract more leading fishery enterprises to settle in them.

The city will give full support to the high-quality development of the sea cucumber industry this year, and a three-year action plan will be released to set up a sea cucumber industrial cluster combining cultivation, processing, as well as marketing. The output value of the whole industry chain of sea cucumber is expected to exceed 16 billion yuan this year.

Yantai in East China's Shandong province plans to accelerate its pace in promoting the development of the marine industry. [Photo by Nie Yingjie/WeChat account: ifengyantai]