AsiaNet 87159

QINGDAO, China, Dec. 10, 2020 /Xinhua=KYODO JBN/--

Recently, Zhang Jiandong, director-general of Oceanic Administration of

Shandong Province, said at a press conference held by the Information Office of

Shandong Provincial People's Government that in 2019, Shandong's total marine

output value reached 1.46 trillion yuan, continuing to rank second in China,

accounting for 16.3% of China's total. In Shandong's marine sector, the scale

of marine fishery, marine biomedical industry, marine salt industry, marine

electric power industry and marine transportation industry all ranked first in

China.

Zhang said that the marine biomedical industry is one of the most promising

strategic emerging industries in China. During the 13th Five-Year Plan period

(2016-2020), Shandong Province has stepped up the research and development of

innovative marine drugs, set up "China Blue Drug Bank Development Fund" with a

total scale of 5 billion yuan, established Shandong Marine Drugs Manufacturing

Industry Innovation Center, and built six product R & D platforms for modern

marine drugs, modern marine Chinese medicine, etc. GV971, a new Chinese drug

for Alzheimer's disease independently developed by academician Guan Huashi's

team, has been approved and put on the market, becoming the 14th marine drug in

the world and the 2nd in China. Qingdao has built the world's largest seaweed

biological products industrial base, and its alginate production capacity ranks

first in the world. Yantai Dongcheng Pharmaceutical Group Co., Ltd. has become

the world's largest manufacturer of raw materials of chondroitin sulfate and

the only domestic supplier of chondroitin sulfate injection.

"We will redouble our efforts to develop advanced equipment and promote marine

development to move towards the deep sea," said Zhang, adding that marine

engineering equipment manufacturing industry is a new strategic industry in

Shandong's marine industry system. In the past five years, Shandong has

accelerated the development of high-end marine engineering equipment

manufacturing industry, and initially built three major marine manufacturing

bases for ship building and repair, marine heavy industry and offshore oil

equipment manufacturing. Jiaolong, Xiangyanghong 01, Kexue, Hailong, Qianlong

and other deep-sea marine equipment with independent intellectual property

rights have been put into use, effectively expanding the breadth and depth of

marine development. Blue Whale 1 and Blue Whale 2, ultra-deep-water

semisubmersible drilling rigs independently designed and built by CIMC Raffles

have successfully undertaken the task of trial production of combustible ice in

the South China Sea, bringing China's deep-water oil and gas exploration and

development capacity into the world's advanced ranks.

In addition, the marine transportation industry has become an important pillar

industry in the construction of a modern marine industry system in Shandong. By

strengthening coordinated land and sea development and integrating coastal port

resources, Shandong has established Shandong Port Group, thus forming a coastal

port group development pattern with Qingdao Port, Yantai Port and Rizhao Port

as the core and Weihai Port, Weifang Port, Dongying Port, Binzhou Port and

other important regional ports as the supplement, opening up navigation with

more than 700 ports in over 180 countries and regions in the world. In 2019,

the cargo throughput of coastal ports in the province reached 1.61 billion

tons, and the container throughput 31 million TEUs, the total of the two

ranking second in China's coastal provinces. The phase I and phase II projects

of Qingdao Port's world-leading fully automated terminal have successfully

completed construction and were put into operation. Qingdao Port also won the

honorary titles of "National Green Port" and "2019 Asia Pacific Green Port".

Source: The Information Office of Shandong Provincial People's Government