The eastern coastal city of Qingdao, Shandong province will continue to promote the high-quality development of the marine economy and contribute to the country's efforts in building a marine powerhouse.

The Qingdao Municipal Marine Development Bureau recently released guidelines to build Qingdao into a leading modern ocean city, and set development goals for its marine sector. 

Qingdao boasts a vibrant marine economy. [Photo/VCG]

The oceans are strategically important to high-quality development, said a Qingdao official, adding that more efforts will be made to accelerate marine sci-tech innovation, improve the marine development capacity, and foster and strengthen emerging marine industries of strategic importance.

The city will strive to build itself into an international marine science and technology innovation center, a modern international shipping trade and financial innovation center, a global modern marine industry center, a global marine ecology demonstration center, and a global marine affairs exchange center.

By 2025, it is expected that the city's gross ocean production will increase by more than 7 percent annually, and the added value of marine strategic emerging industries will increase by more than 8 percent annually.

By 2035, Qingdao will initially build itself into a central global marine city with advanced marine science and technology, a developed marine economy, a beautiful marine ecological environment and a thriving marine culture with active international maritime exchanges and cooperation.

In 2021, Qingdao's gross ocean production reached 468.48 billion yuan ($69.76 billion), ranking first among coastal cities in China, with a year-on-year increase of 17.1 percent and accounted for more than 30 percent of the city's GDP.