Marine industries celebrate World Oceans Day

Almost 30 percent of the city’s total GDP last year came from marine industries, said Shanghai Water Authority on Thursday at the opening ceremony of World Oceans Day which falls tomorrow.

Over the past five years, Shanghai has witnessed rapid development in marine industries. In 2014, the GDP of marine industries in the city was 62.2 million yuan (US$9 million). Last year the figure was 91.8 million yuan, accounting for 11 percent of GDP generated by all marine industries in China.

Xiongcheng oceanographic engineering is based in Lingang. The piling ships it manufactures laid the first pile for the Peljesac Bridge in Croatia in January. After completion, it will connect the southern exclave comprising the bulk of Dubrovnik-Neretva County with the remainder of the Croatian mainland.

Technology developed by Xiongcheng are widely used in offshore wind power plants and offshore oilfield.

Zhang Tie, CEO of Xiongcheng, said Chinese companies had invested more in R&D. The resources in Lingang are important to the company for developing new technologies and equipment.

Lingang plans to establish a new platform with universities and local companies in July to provide resource integration.

Ma Weigang from the platform said it will provide a one-package service for marine industry companies from technology innovation, product research to project incubating.

“Take the conductivity-temperature-depth device used for ocean exploration for instance,” said Ma. “The key technology of the device for transmitting data is a foreign patent.”

Ma said the cost of developing the optical transmitting technology is too high for any single company.

“But the platform will try to coordinate resources in the area to jointly develop technology,” Ma said. “The cost will be divided but the outcome will be shared.”

Ma is expecting the project to have achievements in the next three to six years, and some other fundamental research will also start this year.