The eastern coastal city of Qingdao, Shandong province [Photo/VCG]

The eastern coastal city of Qingdao, Shandong province will continue to develop its marine economy, accelerate marine sci-tech innovation, improve marine development capacity, and foster and strengthen emerging marine industries of strategic importance, local officials said.

According to the Qingdao Municipal Marine Development Bureau, the city will accelerate the construction of the national deep-sea big data center, the national deep-sea gene bank and the national deep-sea sample library this year.

Qingdao will build a national seawater desalination demonstration city, and strive to establish the Qingdao Seawater Desalination Design Institute. It will promote the construction of large-scale seawater desalination application bases in Licang district and Dongjiakou, and put into operation the expansion project of a local seawater desalination plant.

Qingdao Port, Shandong province [Photo/VCG]

It will accelerate the construction of the Ocean Engineering Research Institute of China (Qingdao branch) and the construction of a research center led by academicians and chief scientists.

It will also gather the country's top marine research teams and talents to promote the implementation of a number of major marine industry related projects.

Efforts will be made to explore the establishment of the municipal marine development platforms and marine industry funds, build an innovative investment and financing system for the marine industry, and promote the clustering and high-end development of the marine industry.

This year, the city will start construction of 88 key ocean-related projects involving a total investment of over 200 billion yuan ($31.44 billion). It will accelerate the development of a number of distinctive marine industrial clusters in key areas such as marine equipment and the shipbuilding industry, marine biomedicine, modern fisheries, marine new energy, and deep-sea resource development.