China's marine economy expanded steadily last year, with a gross output of 9.9 trillion yuan ($1.39 trillion), up 6 percent year-on-year, ThePaper reported on Thursday.

China's marine economic development index in 2023 was 123.5, an increase of 3.0 percent over the previous year, according to a report on China's marine economic development index released by the National Marine Data and Information Service on Oct 31.

The index is a comprehensive quantitative assessment of the development status of China's marine economy in a certain period and was released at the 2024 China Marine Economy Expo in Shenzhen, South China's Guangdong province.

It covers five fields, namely development scale and efficiency, structural optimization and upgrading, resource saving and utilization, foreign economy and trade, and livelihood security and improvement.

China's emerging marine industries are developing rapidly; transformation and upgrading of traditional industries are accelerating; scientific and technological innovation capacity is steadily improving; and finance is supporting high-quality development of the marine economy, according to the report.

Thirty-one marine-related enterprises saw IPO listing last year, with a fund raising scale of 34.2 billion yuan, and the financial capital market was active.

The level of marine resource saving has been steadily improved, and the capacity of resource utilization has been significantly enhanced.

The output of offshore crude oil and natural gas increased by 5.8 and 9.1 percent, respectively, over the previous year, and the generation of offshore wind power rose by 17.6 percent year-on-year.

The scale of seawater desalination projects and the water consumption of seawater cooling increased by 7 and 4.7 percent, respectively, over the previous year.

The volume and quality of foreign trade increased steadily, with high-level opening-up making steady progress.

Last year, China's container throughput on international routes increased by 4.3 percent over the previous year, showing strong resilience in development.

The level of livelihood security has been steadily improved, the income of marine fishermen has continued to improve, and marine tourism has recovered with strong momentum.

Last year, the per capita net income of marine fishermen increased by 3.6 percent over the previous year. The number of domestic visitors received by coastal cities increased by more than 60 percent year-on-year.