By Xuefei Chen Axelsson

Stockholm, Sept. 25 (Nordic Chinese Times)—Zhejiang province, east China plans to utilize its ’blue land’, said Zhao Hongzhu, Secretary of the Party Committee of CPC of Zhejiang Province recently.

Zhao Hongzhu, (middle) spoke to journalists from home and abroad about Zhejiang’s
future plan.

”Zhejiang is rich in marine resources. Its marine area stands at 2.6 million square kilometers, that is 2.6 times more than its land,” said Zhao to journalists from home and abroad.

To develop the marine economy including ship-manufacturing, shipping industry, marine pharmaceuticals and marine energy utilization is one of the four new national strategies to be implemented in Zhejiang which has been the vanguard of exported-oriented provinces in China.

New bridges across the sea have been built between Zhoushan islands and Ningbo, which is the fourth largest port in the world in terms of cargo shipping capacity. Most of the export products in China leaves for all over the world from here.

A new port is being built in Zhoushan which will belong to Ningbo-Zhoushan port. With the two combined, the capacity will be even bigger in cargo transportation by the sea.

Meanwhile, Zhejiang Shipbuilding Co. Ltd is busy manufacturing ocean shipping vessels , making it global biggest OSV Maker.

”We are manufacturing electric vessels, which is green boat,” said Manager Wang Jianding who is also Chief Production Officer of Sinopacific Shipbuilding Group Co. Ltd.

The ships produced here will be exported to France and Norway while the Chinese side is cooperating with these two countries in production.

To support the export-oriented economy and provide good services, Zhejiang is also selected as one of the financial reform pilot areas and international trade pilot area.

”Financial reform in Zhejiang’s Wenzhou is to solve two problems, one is that there are so many small and medium-sized enterprises that cannot get funding and the other is that there is plenty of private capital which has difficulty to invest, ” said Bao Chuntian, deputy director of Zhejiang Provincial Finance Affair Office.

He said the next step in Zhejiang’s financial reform will focus on supporting private capital to open village level banks so that the money will become legal and open in stead of being underground. This way small farmers can get loans or funding through the village level financial organizations. They also plan to approve micro-loan operation in the local area.

Observers hold that these are steps towards deeper reform and conducive to further development in the rural areas which tend to be urbanized or in the process of urbanization.
The financial reform is seen as a financial base for further development in Zhejiang which makes full use of both public and private capital.

The strategy to develop marine economy will also promote the development of new energy such as wind power, wave power and renewable power. New industries such as conference industry, cultural industry, wetland and tourism will gain new impetus since the infrastructure both on land and at sea has been improved.

According to the provincial leader, Zhejiang is one of the top provinces which has smaller gap between the rural and urban areas. While economy develops rapidly, culture, education, environment, health and sports are also developing at a fast speed.

Zhao Hongzhu spoke at the press conference at the government headquarters in Hangzhou, together with officials from various departments.

”Zhejiang’s green coverage surpasses 60 percent of its total area,” Zhao Hongzhu said proudly.

”Our next step is to enrich our spiritual life since we have realized a well-off material life now,” Zhao proposed new targets for the government and the people in the next development period.

Journalists from 60 foreign media and domestic mainstream media participated in the press conference.