Early this year Zhanjiang became one of eight coastal cities in China to be an experimental site for high-tech marine industries.

The initiative calls for the city to focus on breeding seafood and healthy farming by creating demonstration industrial zones and parks.

With 2,023 kilometers of coastline and 20,000 square kilometers of sea within its boundaries, Zhanjiang is the largest demonstrative city for the marine economy in Guangdong province.

Output from marine industries in the city totaled 127.58 billion yuan ($20.77 billion) last year, following only Guangzhou and Shenzhen in the province. The fishery industry generated 43.37 billion yuan for the year.

Ocean-based industries include offshore oil and gas exploration, oceanic chemicals, shipbuilding and maintenance, marine equipment manufacturing and fishing.

Zhanjiang leads all Chinese cities in the cultivation area, output, processing volume and export of shrimp.

Estimates say that one of every three shrimp sold in China comes from Zhanjiang and one of every five on the dining table in the United States can be traced to the city.

In the first three quarters of the year Zhanjiang exported 88,300 tons of aquatic products valued at $719 million.

The city’s sea-related industries are expected to be spurred by the mega steel and petrochemical complexes being built on the Donghai Island, China’s fifth-largest island.

The first blast furnace by the country’s leading steel maker Baosteel Group is scheduled to go into operation in September next year.

When complete the facility will have an annual capacity of 9.2 million tons of iron and 10 million tons of steel.

The other giant project, a petrochemical joint venture between Sinopec and Kuwait Petroleum Corp, will include a refinery to process 15 million tons of crude oil a year and an ethylene facility with an annual output of 800,000 tons.

Operation of the refinery is due to start in 2016, with the ethylene plant scheduled to go online in 2017.

City authorities and owners of the two projects are creating a circular economy park for the steel and petrochemical complexes just 500 meters apart as the government pledges to conserve the city’s environment.

The government encourages businesses to invest in the city’s various industrial parks, new industries, infrastructure, new city areas, seaside tourism and port-related logistics.

The new industries include oceanic development, alternative energy, electronics, pharmaceuticals and new materials.

Output from the city’s marine economy is expected to surpass 180 billion yuan in value next year.