Zhoushan to take helm in marine industry
Print Edition
WITH an abundance of marine resources, Zhoushan, a prefecture-level city in east China’s Zhejiang Province, is well positioned to become an international services base for the maritime industry.
According to plans unveiled earlier this year, the city will strengthen its efforts to enhance services related to bonded bunker fuel delivery, shipbuilding, maritime logistics, maritime finance and a variety of intermediary businesses related to the marine industry.
The plan is part of a strategy proposed by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang last year concerning the establishment of a river-sea intermodal service center in Zhoushan.
“Like service areas on expressways, Zhoushan will be a service center for marine transport,” Wang Haiming, deputy director of the Zhoushan Bureau of Commerce, told reporters on the sidelines of the 17th China Zhejiang Investment and Trade Symposium last week.
Wang said such plans will also promote the integration of urban functions and services into the Ningbo-Zhoushan port system, making the area a hub for port transportation and residential living.
“With the development of a maritime service center and the construction of a river-sea intermodal center, Zhoushan will be a critical link connecting the Yangtze River Economic Zone and the Maritime Silk Road,” Wang said.
As China’s biggest archipelago, Zhoushan consists of 1,390 islands and 3,306 reefs, covering 1,440 square kilometers of land area and 20,800 square kilometers of inland sea.
Situated at the southern flank of the Yangtze River estuary and the outer edge of Hangzhou Bay, it has approximately 280 kilometers of deep-water coastline — or 18.4 percent of the country’s total.
In 2011, the central government approved plans to construct the Zhoushan Archipelago New Area, the country’s fourth state-level new area after Pudong New Area in Shanghai, Binhai New Area in Tianjin and Liangjiang New Area in Chongqing.
The development of the area has gained momentum with an increasing number of trading and shipping companies choosing to set up operations there.
Zhoushan is home to 200 shipping companies and 60,000 international seafarers. The overall value of shipping transactions handle there accounts for one-third of the national total. Meanwhile, about 20 percent of all ship maintenance in China happens in Zhoushan.
According to government planning, cargo throughput in Zhoushan is expected to reach 400 million tons per year by 2015, double the amount handled in 2010.
Zhoushan has also joined a number of cities seeking permission from the central government to establish a free trade zone, after the first zone of its kind on the Chinese mainland was set up in Shanghai.
Wang said the proposed free trade zone will complement and support Shanghai’s zone by focusing on international trading of oil products, including crude oil, petroleum products, and heating oil.
As home to part of China’s strategic oil reserve, Zhoushan is already an important center in the country’s oil industry. The city boasts 31 million cubic meters of oil storage capacity, exceeding that of Singapore, the world’s third-largest oil product trading center, according to Wang.
Last year, bonded bunker fuel supplies in Zhoushan port amounted to 665,000 tons, representing year-on-year growth of 62.2 percent.
During the investment fair which accompanied last week’s investment and trade symposium, Zhoushan lured two oil projects involving a total investment of over US$500 million. These included a marine oil-and-gas pipeline plant with an expected annual output of 7 billion yuan (US$1.13 billion) and a crude oil storage facility with a capacity of 1.1 million cubic meters.
Zhoushan is also striving to build tourism into one of the local economy’s pillar industries.
In 2014, Zhoushan received 34 million tourists, who brought total revenue of 33.8 billion yuan.
Xu Aihua, director of the Zhoushan Tourism Commission, expects that by 2020, total investment in tourism will exceed 30 billion yuan.
“With a vast number of islands featuring a great diversity of ecological and cultural resources, Zhoushan will develop into a world-famous destination for island tours and an internationally renewed tourism destination for Buddhist culture,” Xu said during an interview at the recent trade symposium.
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