China saw its marine economy reached 4.9 trillion yuan (around 678.67 billion U.S. dollars) in the first six month of this year, a year-on-year increase of 5.6 percent, with a growth rate 0.6 percentage points higher than that of the gross domestic product (GDP), according to the Ministry of Natural Resources.
The ministry reported that the transformation and upgrading of traditional marine industries have steadily progressed over the first half of the year. Particularly, among the 18 major ship types worldwide, China's marine shipbuilding sector ranked first in new orders for 14 ship types. Meanwhile, the country's seaborne import and export value jumped 2.1 percent from the last year.
The marine freight volume during the period saw a year-on-year increase of nine percent, while the maritime passenger volume grew 5.4 percent year on year.
At the same time, China's emerging marine industries also showed rapid growth. Breakthroughs have been made in marine engineering equipment for areas such as marine oil and gas exploration and development, marine clean energy, and marine fisheries. For instance, China's pioneering cylindrical floating, production, storage and offloading (FPSO) facility, Haikui No.1, completed installation in the South China Sea.
"In the first half of the year, the marine engineering equipment manufacturing sector witnessed a rapid recovery. Chinese shipbuilding enterprises have received a number of large contracts. The value of new contracts was three times that of the previous year, and that of outstanding orders grew 11.6 percent year on year. The large-scale utilization of seawater desalination is steadily advancing, helping to improve a diversified water supply system," said Meng Qinglei, deputy director of the ministry's Division of Marine Strategic Planning and Economics.
China also achieved significant results in marine resources development from January to June.
"In the first half of the year, offshore crude oil and natural gas production increased by 5.6 percent and 10.5 percent respectively from a year ago. Offshore wind power generation reached 51.69 billion kilowatt hours, a year-on-year increase of 26.4 percent," said Meng.
During the period, various intelligent application scenarios were embraced by the traditional marine sector to facilitate its transformation and advancement.
"Zhong Nan Yuan 520," for instance, a self-elevating platform (SEP) optimized for high-precision marine surveys, was delivered in May. In addition, an intelligent soft-bodied bionic fish, in the shape of a manta ray and named Wen Yao, was released by Shanghai Ocean University in April.
In June, China also launched its first open marine big-data service platform, dubbed Ocean Cloud, which works to pool national data from the global ocean three-dimensional observation network, facilitate marine information connectivity among departments, and boost global marine information exchange.
China's marine economy grows 5.6 pct in first half of 2024
