Not long before this, the Ministry of Finance and the State Oceanic Administration jointly issued the "Notice on Promoting Regional Demonstration of Innovative Development of the Marine Economy," which explicitly provides fiscal support for developing strategic emerging industries such as marine biology and for carrying out regional demonstration of innovative marine economy development. Shandong, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong and other places appeared on the list of special fund support.

The marine economy is spreading from point to area and blossoming across the board, while competition among regions is becoming increasingly fierce.

China's coastal cities (file photo)

Blue "Games" in Different Locations

In early 2012, Shandong established a Blue Economic Zone industrial investment fund with a total scale of 30 billion yuan, beginning to invest in marine industries in a market-oriented way, with an initial scale of 8 billion yuan. An official from the Shandong Provincial Development and Reform Commission predicted to reporters that through market-oriented operation, fixed asset investment in the Shandong Peninsula Blue Economic Zone will exceed 32 trillion yuan over the next 8 to 10 years, and the blue industry fund will become one of the important investment and financing channels for this massive pool of funds.

Tianjin, which faces Shandong across the Bohai Sea, is leveraging the policy, location, and intellectual advantages of the Binhai New Area, a national strategic new area, to focus its development on finance and research. This year Tianjin will further accelerate the construction of a marine financial innovation base and build a modern marine industry system. Key projects such as the Bohai Base Project, the Asia-Pacific Regional Marine Instrument Testing and Evaluation Center, and the National Maritime Museum are also progressing steadily.

Zhejiang Province has proposed turning its marine economy demonstration zone into an important growth pole for China's eastern coastal region and building the Zhoushan Archipelago New Area into a platform for high-end marine industries and major construction. Zhejiang will invest 180 billion yuan in the marine economy this year, with the goal that by 2015 the gross ocean product of the demonstration zone will reach about 700 billion yuan, accounting for 16% of the province's GDP.

As the forefront of reform and opening up, Guangdong was nevertheless the last to become a national-level "marine economy pilot province."

"Emerging industries such as marine biopharmaceuticals, marine engineering equipment manufacturing, and marine renewable energy are where Guangdong's future core competitiveness in the marine economy lies." According to a person familiar with the matter, "this coincides with Guangdong's future industrial transformation and upgrading." According to Guangdong's plan, by 2015 the province's gross ocean product will reach 1.5 trillion yuan.

Several experts noted in their analysis that Shandong highlights the overall development of the Blue Peninsula Economic Zone, Zhejiang highlights port shipping and island development and seeks to build a strong province in port and shipping to drive economic and social development, while Guangdong places more emphasis on comprehensive development and regional cooperation. A comparison shows that, relative to the marine economy development positioning of Shandong, Zhejiang, Guangdong and other places, the "facing the sea" plans formulated by Liaoning, Hebei, Jiangsu and other coastal provinces place more emphasis on the "coastal economy."

"There is still a big difference between the coastal economy and the marine economy," said Xiao Jincheng, director of the Institute of Land Development and Regional Economy at the National Development and Reform Commission. "The coastal economy mainly develops the economy on land by drawing on and relying on location advantages; it is an economy relative to inland areas. By relying on proximity to the sea, industries become highly concentrated, and the advantages of low port and shipping costs are used to develop related industries. The marine economy, by contrast, mainly uses the advantages of marine resources to develop the economy. According to the distance between the development area and the coastline, it is divided into offshore development, distant-sea development, and deep-sea development—for example, fisheries, coastal tourism, and deep-sea aquaculture."

Seizing the opportunity of the national upgraded marine strategy, coastal provinces have rushed to set sail. Jiangsu has vigorously pursued policy exploration and industrial layout; in 2011 the GDP of its coastal areas grew by an average of 17.4% annually to 826.27 billion yuan, with major economic indicators growing faster than the provincial average. Hebei has proposed fully leveraging the advantages of the eastern coast and fully unleashing the potential of surrounding Beijing and Tianjin.

This is also reflected in the layout of Liaoning's coastal development plan. "Relying on the advantage of Dalian as a shipping center in Northeast Asia, Liaoning has moved industries suited to coastal development, such as steel and petrochemicals, to the coast, optimizing the industrial structure of both the coast and the hinterland," Xiao Jincheng said. "Judging from the current national economic situation, industrial restructuring has reached a critical period, and it is very necessary to vigorously promote land-sea linkage and achieve land-sea complementarity."

In marine economy development, the Bohai Rim Economic Zone clearly has advantages over the southeastern coastal provinces.

According to Yin Kedong, director of the Department of Finance at Ocean University of China and a doctoral supervisor, lower labor costs have driven the rapid development of marine industries, especially marine tertiary industries, in recent years. The Bohai Rim region has a complete range of industrial sectors; the shipbuilding industry, offshore oil and gas development, marine engineering, and marine high-tech industries have formed an industrial agglomeration effect, with the advantage in marine equipment manufacturing particularly evident. The West Taiwan Strait Economic Zone on the southeastern coast links the significance of marine economy development with "exchanges with Taiwan." Xiamen has said that it aims to use the advantages of the West Taiwan Strait Economic Zone to become a major stage for connecting with Taiwanese businesses.

In July this year, Shanghai's "12th Five-Year Plan for Marine Development" was also approved for implementation; the city will rely on its port advantages to continue to hold the top position as the country's national shipping center. Guangxi, which is under the "care" of the western development policy and ranks sixth in the country in coastline length, relies on the "Guangxi Marine Industry Development Plan" and proposes to leverage the "land-sea combination" resource advantages of the Beibu Gulf Economic Zone, planning to build Guangxi into a "strong marine province" by 2020.

From north to south and from east to west, with the support of a series of national policies, the coastal areas have linked up into a "blue economic belt." Provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions are making further plans around the resource of the sea, and competition is becoming increasingly fierce.