Qingdao: Building a maritime city and fashion capital, and sharing the benefits with more and more people

Qingdao is home to 26 research institutions for maritime science, which account for 19 percent of China’s total; 34 key laboratories and engineering (technical) research centers of ministerial level and above, accounting for 33 percent of the country’s total; and it accounts for 28 percent of China’s full-time Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering academics. As such, Qingdao occupies the top spot in China in terms of the three indicators.

As home to the Pilot National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, National Deep Sea Center, National Maritime Equipment Quality Inspection Center, Center for Ocean Mega-Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao has unique technical support and talent pool. And it is a leading global center in maritime science and technology showcasing “Chinese wisdom”.

In 2018, Qingdao’s total maritime output value was 332.7 billion yuan, up 15.6 percent year-on-year, which accounted for 27.7 percent of its local GDP. Qingdao’s maritime economy covers the manufacturing, fishery, medicine, sci-tech, service, education and other sectors, and its penetration into these sectors has gained pace, which indicates the parallel development of traditional maritime industries, including maritime transport, maritime equipment and coastal tourism, with maritime bio-medicine, modern maritime services and maritime new materials being the emerging sectors.

Qingdao residents have been making efforts to transform the city into a maritime cultural brand and a famous coastal cultural tourism hub. Over the years, Qingdao has made strenuous efforts to protect the marine environment and ecology, and achieved success in bio-protection and developing a “blue economy”. And according to a Qingdao Ecological and Environmental Bureau report, the acreage of good maritime space in Jiaozhou Bay has increased to 73.7 percent, 10.3 percent more than that five years ago.