An aerial drone photo shows a container vessel berthing at Qianwan Port in Qingdao, east China's Shandong Province, Jan. 13, 2025. (Photo by Yu Fangping/Xinhua)

The total value-added output of China's seaside ports reached 6.7 trillion yuan ($931.42 billion) in 2024, accounting for 13.6 percent of the total economic output of those coastal cities, China News Service reported on Thursday, citing a report from the Ministry of Transport. 

Compared with 2023, the scale of the sea port economy has increased by 360.6 billion yuan, an increase greater than seen in the previous two years, per the Port Economic Development Report of Chinese Seaport Cities, which was published on Thursday in North China's Tianjin city.

And, value-added generated from coastal cities in the Yangtze River Delta accounted for 44.9 percent of the national total, marking them as the most developed areas in China in terms of ports development. The growth is driven by large cities such as Shanghai city, and Ningbo in East China's Zhejiang Province.

In 2024, the port economy accounted for 15 percent of the primary industry in those coastal cities, while the percentage for the secondary industry was 22 percent. For the tertiary industry, the contribution from the port economy was 8 percent, highlighting the underpinning effect ports have on the primary and secondary industries of the coastal cities.

Shanghai, Ningbo, Suzhou in Jiangsu Province, and Shenzhen in South China's Guangdong Province, saw relatively fast growth of the ports economy in 2024, per the report.

Ports are core resources for developing China's maritime economy, which achieved a significant milestone in 2024, with its gross ocean product (GOP) exceeding 10 trillion yuan for the first time.

The GOP reached 10.54 trillion yuan in 2024, marking an increase of 5.9 percent from a year earlier, according to data released by the Ministry of Natural Resources in February.

Statistics released by the Ministry of Natural Resources on June 8, the World Oceans Day, showed that the value-added output of the marine industries expanded 7.2 percent year-on-year last year. 

Global Times