While ocean economy is witnessing rapid growth China's exploitation of the ocean is picking up speed. The coastal regions accelerate their construction of "ocean economy strong provinces". A surge of ocean exploitation has appeared in China. At the same time a series of relevant legal regulations and policies have been issued to further promote the development of ocean economy. In 2004 the State Council put forward the Master Plan to Integrate Ocean Economy Development and Ocean Comprehensive Management into the National Economy and Social Development, which provide firm basis for the development of ocean economy.

However, compared with developed countries the potentials of China's ocean economy have not yet been fully tapped. China has a coastline of more than 18,000 kilometers. According to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) China claims jurisdiction over 3 million square kilometers of the sea. Experts all agree that generally speaking China's seawaters are advantageous in terms of natural environment and resources. They have a rich variety of bio-species and show great potentials for development. According to statistics made public China's maritime oil resources are estimated at about 24 billion tons and maritime natural gas resources at about 14 trillion cubic meters. All these by-far-unexploited resources are the foundation for the future development of China's ocean economy.

Apart from this China still needs to deepen its research and exploitation of the deep sea in such aspects as technological research and development, industry fostering and capability building etc. Experts say China's exploitation of ocean resources is small in scale as compared with that in other countries. Some newly emerged ocean high-tech areas are just beginning to development. Therefore China's rich ocean resources have the potentials for sustainable development and exploitation.

By People's Daily Online