Healthy waters

Green moves

While high-tech is the focus of the country's blue economy development, policymakers and analysts are also paying more attention to ecological protection.

Nearly 800 km to the south of Qing-dao, Jinshan in southern Shanghai is also working hard to make better use of its 23.3-km-long coastal line.

The district, called China's best "deep-sea port" by the revolutionary leader Sun Yat-Sen, has in the last few years become a major center for the chemical industry in East China due to its proximity to the sea.

Despite the contributions made by the district to China's rapid economic growth over the past decade, Chen Xin'an, senior economist and member of Shanghai Jinshan New Town Management Committee, says it hopes to take a more eco-friendly path of progress.

The district wants to be a major tourist destination in Shanghai, or in other words to be a major coastal city without an attractive beach yet.

"Look at the chemical industry towns in Germany. They still offer a great living environment for the citizens. We want to be the same," Chen says.

Survival game

While high-tech and environmentally friendly marine industries are finding the right momentum for growth, companies involved in the traditional marine industries are changing their strategies to survive.

Song Zhengyong, deputy production manager of Huanghai Shipbuilding Co in Shandong, says his company now has more domestic orders.

"More than 80 percent of our cargo orders used to come from abroad. This is changing and we are slowly increasing our domestic business," Song says, adding that sales reached 3 billion yuan in 2011.

China aims to increase annual sales by domestic shipbuilders to 1.2 trillion yuan by 2015 as it works toward its goal of becoming the world's leading shipbuilding nation, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said earlier last year.