Recently, Zhang Jiandong, director-general of Oceanic Administration of 
Shandong Province, said at a press conference held by the Information Office of 
Shandong Provincial People's Government that in 2019, Shandong's total marine 
output value reached 1.46 trillion yuan, continuing to rank second in China, 
accounting for 16.3% of China's total. In Shandong's marine sector, the scale 
of marine fishery, marine biomedical industry, marine salt industry, marine 
electric power industry and marine transportation industry all ranked first in 
China.

Zhang said that the marine biomedical industry is one of the most promising 
strategic emerging industries in China. During the 13th Five-Year Plan period 
(2016-2020), Shandong Province has stepped up the research and development of 
innovative marine drugs, set up "China Blue Drug Bank Development Fund" with a 
total scale of 5 billion yuan, established Shandong Marine Drugs Manufacturing 
Industry Innovation Center, and built six product R & D platforms for modern 
marine drugs, modern marine Chinese medicine, etc. GV971, a new Chinese drug 
for Alzheimer's disease independently developed by academician Guan Huashi's 
team, has been approved and put on the market, becoming the 14th marine drug in 
the world and the 2nd in China. Qingdao has built the world's largest seaweed 
biological products industrial base, and its alginate production capacity ranks 
first in the world. Yantai Dongcheng Pharmaceutical Group Co., Ltd. has become 
the world's largest manufacturer of raw materials of chondroitin sulfate and 
the only domestic supplier of chondroitin sulfate injection.

"We will redouble our efforts to develop advanced equipment and promote marine 
development to move towards the deep sea," said Zhang, adding that marine 
engineering equipment manufacturing industry is a new strategic industry in 
Shandong's marine industry system. In the past five years, Shandong has 
accelerated the development of high-end marine engineering equipment 
manufacturing industry, and initially built three major marine manufacturing 
bases for ship building and repair, marine heavy industry and offshore oil 
equipment manufacturing. Jiaolong, Xiangyanghong 01, Kexue, Hailong, Qianlong 
and other deep-sea marine equipment with independent intellectual property 
rights have been put into use, effectively expanding the breadth and depth of 
marine development. Blue Whale 1 and Blue Whale 2, ultra-deep-water 
semisubmersible drilling rigs independently designed and built by CIMC Raffles 
have successfully undertaken the task of trial production of combustible ice in 
the South China Sea, bringing China's deep-water oil and gas exploration and 
development capacity into the world's advanced ranks.

In addition, the marine transportation industry has become an important pillar 
industry in the construction of a modern marine industry system in Shandong. By 
strengthening coordinated land and sea development and integrating coastal port 
resources, Shandong has established Shandong Port Group, thus forming a coastal 
port group development pattern with Qingdao Port, Yantai Port and Rizhao Port 
as the core and Weihai Port, Weifang Port, Dongying Port, Binzhou Port and 
other important regional ports as the supplement, opening up navigation with 
more than 700 ports in over 180 countries and regions in the world. In 2019, 
the cargo throughput of coastal ports in the province reached 1.61 billion 
tons, and the container throughput 31 million TEUs, the total of the two 
ranking second in China's coastal provinces. The phase I and phase II projects 
of Qingdao Port's world-leading fully automated terminal have successfully 
completed construction and were put into operation. Qingdao Port also won the 
honorary titles of "National Green Port" and "2019 Asia Pacific Green Port".

Source: The Information Office of Shandong Provincial People's Government