Riding the Wave

2023-01-10 02:17ByMALI
CHINAFRICA 2022年12期

By MA LI

Xiamen capitalises on its rich marine resources and advantageous position to push local economic development

Two hundred years ago, the traditional ferry port of Aotou in Xiang’an District, Xiamen City,a key port in the ancient Maritime Silk Road,was a grand scene of cargo ships sailing in and out. Today, the site has been turned into a contemporary art centre, where the 2022 Andersen International Printmaking Biennale for Kids was held on 5 November.

Not far from it, in the remote control room of Hairun Intelligent Terminal in the Xiamen Port area, Wu Wenfeng, a bridge crane operator, is loading goods on a 100,000-tonne freighter with the help of modern equipment. In the first three quarters of 2022, the port completed cargo throughput of over 9.1 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), and its foreign trade throughput reached 6.96 million TEUs, which were shipped along 127 foreign trade routes, reaching 146 ports in 54 countries and regions.

These scenes are part of the daily life of the bustling coastal city of Xiamen. A diversified marine economy is powering the development of the city. In 2021, Xiamen’s marine GDP reached 164.5 billion yuan ($23.3 billion),accounting for 23.4 percent of the city’s total economic output, and the share is estimated to increase to more than 30 percent by 2025. The high-quality development of the marine economy is heralding a new era of prosperity in Xiamen.

The ocean is the lifeline of Xiamen,and technological innovation is the engine that drives the development of the marine economy.

Emerging industries

Emerging industries have become the driving force of Xiamen’s marine economic development. In 2021,Xiamen’s emerging marine industries achieved an added value of 63.73 billion yuan ($9.03 billion), accounting for 38.74 percent of the added value of the city’s marine economy.

In the marine biomedical port, a marine bio-industrial cluster featuring marine biomedicine, marine cosmetics,marine bio-breeding and green agricultural products is rapidly emerging, with the development of a variety of marine biomedical products.

Xiamen Innovax Biotech Co., Ltd. landed in the marine biomedical port in 2008. Here, the company successfully developed and launched China’s first bivalent cervical cancer vaccine and the world’s first recombinant hepatitis E vaccine. At present, the second-phase expansion project for the development of the nine-valent cervical cancer vaccine is about to be completed. After it is put into production, the annual output of the vaccine will reach 60 million doses.

Tool enzymes are the core raw materials for nucleic acid detection, but 80 percent of China’s high-end tool enzymes used to be imported. In order to fill the gap, Xiamen Zhishan Biotechnology Co. Ltd., Xiamen University and the Third Institute of Oceanography of the Ministry of Natural Resources jointly developed highend tool enzymes derived from marine microorganisms and fish genes, which have been exported to Europe,the US, and more than 50 countries in Southeast Asia and other regions, with sales of more than 200 million yuan ($28.37 million) last year.

In 2021, the added value of Xiamen’s marine drug and biological products industry reached 5.37 billion yuan ($762.43 million), an increase of 25.64 percent year on year.

Besides the marine biomedicine, Xiamen’s emerging high-end equipment manufacturing industry is also growing, thanks partly to the city’s key position in the Belt and Road Initiative.

In 2020, the world’s first 7,500-car-capacity LNG car roll-on-roll-off (RO-RO) ship built by Xiamen Shipbuilding Industry Co. Ltd. for Siem Car Carriers,an international company specialising in the transportation of automobiles, RO-RO and break-bulk cargo,was delivered, filling the gap in China’s independent design and construction technology for large dualfuel RO-RO vehicles. According to statistics, in 2021,Xiamen’s emerging high-end maritime equipment manufacturing industry has achieved an added value of 24.35 billion yuan ($4.45 billion), a year-on-year increase of 10.65 percent.

Marine economy has increasingly become a new growth point of China’s national economy. The Report on the Development of China’s Marine Economy(2019-2020) shows that the contribution of the marine economy to China’s national economic growth reached 9.1 percent. Emerging industries are the new growth poles that promote the development of marine economy.

“Xiamen’s emerging ocean-related industries have strengthened the development of its marine economy and will play an important role in extending the industrial chain, improving the industrial level, and raising industrial vigour,” said Zeng Dongsheng, director of the Xiamen Municipal Marine Development Bureau.

Technological innovation

The ocean is the lifeline of Xiamen, and technological innovation is the engine that drives the development of the marine economy.

In Shixun Village of Tong’an District, the Baili Longcheng Shrimp Breeding Industrial Park covering an area of 300mu(20 hectares) was opened recently.As a modern breeding base for improved varieties of shrimp, the park will develop a core prawn germplasm bank on the basis of foreign high-quality prawns, and the annual output of high-quality shrimp seeds will reach 40 billion.

Kang Yingde, general manager of Baili Longcheng Aquaculture Co. Ltd., revealed that they will build a marine technology incubator in Oucuo, Xiang’an District,dedicated to solving a series of problems in shrimp breeding, growth and aquaculture. After the project is fully completed, it is expected to achieve an annual output value of 1 billion yuan to 1.5 billion yuan ($141.8 million-$212.7 million).

The Hairun Container Terminal of Xiamen Port is the first traditional container terminal in China to carry out the whole-process intelligent transformation. It adopts a new generation of automated terminal technology from automated hardware to information system. Since the trial operation at the beginning of the year, the comprehensive operation efficiency has increased by more than 10 percent. Bridge crane operator Wu Wenfeng said that although the terminal is “unmanned,its operation is exceptionally smooth and efficient.”

Chen Changsheng, vice chairperson of the Xiamen Municipal Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, said that Xiamen is building a number of integrated industry-university-research bases.

“In the future, Xiamen will build a national-level marine communication industrial park that integrates marine communication technology, maritime 5G, digital ocean, satellite Internet of Things and submarine robots,creating a more valuable marine emerging industry,”Chen said.

Cultural industry is emerging

On 5 November, the 2022 “Blue Dream” International Contemporary Art Exhibition opened at the Nordic Contemporary Art Centre in Xiamen, which showcased 86 works of different art forms by 34 artists from seven countries of China, Sweden, Denmark, Norway,Germany, the Philippines and South Africa.

Staff remotely operate bridge cranes of the Hairun Container Terminal of Xiamen Port on 9 September 2021(CNSPHOTO)

Staff of a biopharmaceutical company in Xiamen pack sampling tubes on 16 March (XINHUA)

As a supporting event of Xiamen International Ocean Week, the “Blue Dream” series of exhibitions has been held for three years. Ke Jingjing, operation director of Nordic Contemporary Art Centre, said that the exhibition uses culture and art as a bridge for the public to enter marine culture, and also sets up a channel to link marine culture, tourism and art industry, and promotes the coordinated development of marine culture and marine economy.

At present, Aotou has become an art base with the location of the Nordic Contemporary Art Centre,Chaokuang Art Museum, Rong Art Museum, Nanyin Culture, and Porcelain Art.

Zeng said that in addition to the “sudden rise” of the marine cultural industry in Aotou, the city’s marine cultural industries have also shown a booming trend.Wutong Fengtou Fishing Village and other towns with unique local characteristics, all of which make use of marine cultural resources to create distinct cultural venues on the coastline, have become a useful supplement to the high-quality development of Xiamen’s marine economy. CA