China's marine economy sustains steady growth in Q1-3

China's marine economy showed steady progress in the first three quarters of 2024, with a gross ocean product of 7.7 trillion yuan (more than 1.08 trillion U.S. dollars), a 5.4 percent year-on-year increase, according to the data released by the Ministry of Natural Resources on Thursday.

Approved sea-use areas grew 6.7 percent year on year, involving over 740 billion yuan (nearly 104 billion U.S. dollars) of investment in marine projects.

Marine energy production remained stable, with crude oil and natural gas output up by 5.9 percent and 8.8 percent respectively, and offshore wind power generation surged by 29.5 percent.

The output of domestic marine aquatic products rose over 4 percent.

Shipbuilding sustained its growth trend, with new orders, completed vessels and on-hand orders soaring over 45 percent, 31 percent and 31 percent from the same period of last year, respectively, keeping China in the lead in the global shipbuilding sector.

The death toll in the war-torn Gaza Strip has risen to 71,455 since the conflict between Hamas and Israel erupted on Oct 7, 2023, with the number of injuries reaching 171,347, Gaza's health authorities said on Friday.

In the past 24 hours, hospitals in Gaza received 14 more bodies, including 12 new deaths and two bodies recovered from the rubble, in addition to 18 new injuries as of 11:00 on Friday, the authorities said.

Since the ceasefire agreement took effect on Oct 11, 2025, Israeli attacks have killed 463 people and wounded 1,269 others, according to the Gaza health authorities.