As Qingdao came into being because of the sea and is thriving due to its proximity to the sea, Qingdao’s outstanding feature and advantage lies in the sea. In an effort to realize an average annual growth of more than 6.5% in its gross ocean product, a target set for the 15th Five-Year Plan period, Qingdao will give full play to its competitive edges in scientific and technological innovation, marine industry and port hub, and move faster to grow into a modern marine center.

In terms of promoting scientific and technological innovation, Qingdao will take all steps to launch the marine sci-tech innovation campaign to faster grow into a marine sci-tech innovation center with international reach and to strive for breakthroughs in a number of key core technologies. The city will resort to integration of resources to build the large sci-tech innovation corridor at a faster pace, foster the complete industry-university-research-application chain, and take faster steps to translate superiority in marine scientific research into more favorable conditions for development.

In terms of building the industrial strength, Qingdao will place emphasis on intelligent, green, integrated, cluster-based and high-end development and move faster to establish a modern marine industry system in an bid to become a development hub of modern marine industry. Qingdao will prioritize transforming and upgrading competitive sectors such as modern fisheries, port and shipping, marine cultural tourism and marine chemical engineering. The city will work hard to scale up emerging industries like marine equipment, marine pharmaceuticals, seawater desalination and offshore wind power, and take a forward-looking approach to planning for future-oriented industries such as deep-sea exploitation and marine electronic information to take the preemptive.

In terms of building a port hub, Qingdao will unswervingly consider ports as important platforms to ensure land and marine development in a coordinated way and seek opportunities from the sea, make solid progress in the building of major projects such as the general-purpose terminal in the Dongjiakou Port Area, newly build a number of inland port, increase the frequency of sea-rail combined transportation services, bolster such services as cross-border settlement and shipping insurance, and pivot towards a trading port and a financial port in a bid to move faster to become a world-class international shipping center. (Liu Yanjie)