The marine industry is the jewel of the coastal city of Yantai, powering its entire economy, reporters from nearly 30 media outlets nationwide learned during a tour recently.

The media group learned about Yantai's development and innovation in fields such as marine equipment manufacturing, marine ecological protection, marine biomedicine and coastal tourism during the three-day trip.

They got the chance to see rare purple sea cucumbers cultivated by Shandong Oriental Ocean Sci-Tech. While promoting modern fisheries, the company has shifted its focus from just specializing in one area to a more holistic approach covering selective breeding processes, deep-processing, tourism and precision medicine.

Zhang Yuting from nxnews.net, based in the Ningxia Hui autonomous region, said that the city's marine economic projects are at the forefront of the nation and companies' innovative capabilities are providing valuable lessons.

Yantai-based Bohai Ferry Group gave the media group a tour of one of its ro-ro passenger ferries, which features state-of-the-art facilities including expanded vehicle storage and luxury passenger cabins.

Li Chuanqiang, chief at the Yantai oceanic and fishery affairs bureau, said, "A good industrial foundation, advantageous resources and sufficient guarantee systems lay a solid foundation for Yantai to develop into a marine powerhouse."

Yantai, located in the east of Shandong Peninsula, has a maritime area of 26,000 square kilometers and 1,038 km of coastline.

The city has developed in all of the 12 nationally defined major maritime industry categories, including marine fishery, oil and gas extraction, sea salt production, hydropower, desalination and marine transportation. The gross ocean product of Yantai surpassed 200 billion yuan last year, accounting for more than 27 percent of the city's GDP.

Yantai will speed up improving three traditional industries - modern fishery, marine culture tourism and marine transportation and logistics, local officials said.

The city wants to become a modern fishery demonstration region that leads the country, an internationally noted coastal resort and an important center for marine logistics.

Yantai will also expand in the three emerging sectors of marine engineering equipment manufacturing, marine biological medicine and products, and desalination.

By the end of 2021, the city expects its gross ocean product to hit 330 billion yuan and account for more than 30 percent of Yantai's GDP.

Yantai is home to nine marine universities and institutes, such as the Yantai Institute of Coastal Zone Research at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Several maritime scientific and technological achievements that are influential domestically and internationally have been produced in the city, local officials said.

The Shandong International Biotechnology Park has attracted nearly 100 innovation and entrepreneurship projects in the marine biology and medicine field and is incubating more than 60 medium, small and micro innovative startups.

songmengxing@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 06/09/2018 page14)