China's State Council has approved a plan to establish a comprehensive pilot zone of ocean economy in Guangdong Province on July 19, as part of the national marine development strategy.

Targets: A powerful oceanic economy province

According to the Plan, by 2015, Guangdong will have an oceanic industry output of 150 million RMB, accounting for a quarter of the province’s GDP. By 2020, Guangdong will fulfill all the strategic targets in building a powerful oceanic economy province.

The pilot zone in Guangdong will be a center in commercialization research and technology innovations, a demonstrative zone in enhancing ocean ecological civilization, as well as a pioneer in boosting comprehensive marine management.

Coastal line of Guangdong(nfdaily)

Regions: A growth engine

The pilot zone is expected to be an important new growth engine for the Pearl River Delta and the neighboring regions.

The zone covers all the offshore waters in Guangdong Province with an area of 419,000 square kilometers.

The plan supports a balanced regional development of Guangdong, as the zone covers 14 cities -- Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Shantou, Huizhou, Dongguan, Zhongshan, JIangmen, Yangjiang, Zhanjiang, Maoming, Chaozhou and Jieyang, half of the which are located in the less developed east and west wings of Guangdong.

“Guangdong will also strengthen cross-border cooperation in ocean economy,” said an official from Provincial Development and Reform Commission, “On the west side, Guangdong-Guangxi-Hainan economic Zone will emphasize their offshore tourism, modern marine fisheries; on the east side, Guangdong-Fujian economic zone will extend cooperation on marine fisheries and ocean culture; and the center Pearl River Delta region will strength cooperation with Hong Kong and Macao in transportation, storage and distribution, marine engineering and equipment manufacturing, and islands development.”

Backgrounder

Last year, marine industry output in Guangdong totaled 829 billion RMB, accounting for 20 percent of the national total, with an average annual increase of 17.8 percent in the “11th Five-Year Plan” period (2005-2010). But the shortage of the ocean economy in Guangdong is obvious, problems like monotonous develop mode, low efficiency of resources utilization and short of emerging industries remain to be solved in the develop process.

Guangdong ocean economy pilot zone is one of the three regional ocean economic zones approved by the State Council; The other two are in eastern Zhejiang Province and Shandong Province.