Qingdao sees significant growth in its modern marine industry in the first half of 2024. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

In the first half of the year, the city of Qingdao, a port city in East China's Shandong province, saw significant growth in its modern marine industry, as efforts to cultivate new quality productive forces in the sector began to bear fruit.

To accelerate the development of its marine economy, Qingdao has implemented what it calls a "4+2+4" strategy this year.

This aims to foster emerging marine industries such as equipment manufacturing, pharmaceuticals and bioproducts, seawater desalination and comprehensive utilization, as well as new energy. Additionally, the strategy targets future-oriented industries such as deep-sea exploration and marine electronic information, while also upgrading traditional sectors including fisheries, port shipping, tourism, and chemicals.

Statistics from the Qingdao Municipal Marine Development Bureau show that in the first half of this year, Qingdao's marine GDP reached 267.16 billion yuan ($37.26 billion), a year-on-year increase of 7.7 percent. 

Emerging industries have shown particularly strong momentum. The marine equipment manufacturing sector, for example, experienced robust growth, with the added value of the shipbuilding industry rising by 13.7 percent during the first half of the year.

The deep-sea development industry is also expanding rapidly. The three national platforms for deep-sea research — the National Deep-Sea Gene Bank, the Deep-Sea Big Data Center and the Specimen Sample Gallery — have all entered the project initiation stage, signaling the sector's promising future.

The marine fisheries industry has made notable progress, achieving improvements in both quality and efficiency. In the first half of the year, the fisheries output value grew by 4.8 percent and production increased by 4.25 percent, resulting in a double win for the industry.

The port shipping industry also saw continued growth. In the first half of the year, the added value of the marine transportation industry increased by 13 percent year-on-year.

Furthermore, Qingdao Port's capacity continued to expand, with the port handling about 363 million metric tons of cargo from January to June, representing a 5 percent year-on-year increase.