QINGDAO, China, Nov. 23, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- A press conference held on November 2 by the Information Office of Shandong Provincial People's Government revealed that Shandong's Gross Ocean Product (GOP) has reached RMB 1,318.7 billion yuan in 2020, recovering to 98.10% of the previous year's, and accounting for 18.03% of the regional GDP and 16.48% of the national GOP. The province's marine economy has been recovering quarter by quarter, with continued structural optimization, showing strong resilience and further consolidating the trend of high-quality development in the marine economy.
By industry, the development foundation of Shandong's marine economy is being consolidated constantly. Value added of the province's major marine industries stood at RMB 507.3 billion yuan, recovering to 92.3% of the previous year's. The ocean engineering construction industry, the ocean power industry and the seawater utilization industry have all achieved steady development, with year-on-year growth rate of 5.4%, 4.9% and 4.0% respectively. The marine biomedical industry achieved a value added of RMB 12.7 billion yuan, ranking first in China.
From the perspective of ports, the construction of world class ports has been advancing in an orderly way. The Port of Shandong is aiming to accelerate the construction of a world-class marine port, and to speed up the upgrade from a loading port to a hub port, a trade port and a financial port. In 2020, 35 new container lines have been added, including 18 foreign trade lines, with the number and density of lines both steadily ranking first in northern China's ports. Independent innovation has helped to break technical barriers of the industry, about which 10 technologies were the first in the world and world records have been broken for 7 times. In 2020, the marine transportation industry achieved a value added of RMB 114 billion yuan, an increase of 4.8% year-on-year, with the industry ranking first in China in terms of scale.
In terms of scientific and technological innovation capabilities, key technologies in the marine industry have continued to make new breakthroughs, and science and technology have enabled transformation and upgrading of the marine economy. The Phase I of the Marine Biomedical Industry Investment Fund under Shandong's Project of Replacing Old Growth Drivers with New Ones has reached a scale of RMB 150 million yuan, providing strong support for marine drug research and development. With the in-depth implementation of China's "Blue Drug Storage" development plan, BG136, a new national Class I immune anti-tumor marine drug, will soon enter the clinical trial stage. A pilot demonstration project for the integrated development of offshore wind power has been launched. The Shandong Industry Research Institute for Seawater Desalination and Comprehensive Utilization has been established to create an R&D chain and an industry chain for seawater desalination.
In addition, the green transformation and development of Shandong's marine economy has been significantly enhanced. The marine clean energy industry has been developing rapidly. In 2020, the province's marine wind power generation capacity was 17.896 billion kWh, an increase of 4.1% year-on-year. 39 seawater desalination projects have been completed, with a daily production capacity of 371,400 tons. Marine ecological restoration has been accelerated, with a total of 29 critical marine ecological restoration projects implemented in the Bohai Sea, and 4,675 hectares of coastal wetlands and 62.82 kilometers of shoreline have been remediated, with mission accomplishment rates over 123% and 285% of the overall tasks respectively.
