Yang Zhen, vice-chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and executive vice-chairman of the Central Committee of the Chinese Peasants and Workers Democratic Party, led a research team to Dalian, Liaoning province, from July 1 to 2 to conduct a survey on expanding emerging marine industries and promoting high-quality development of the marine economy.

The research team visited Liaoyu Group, Dalian University of Technology and Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Co Ltd. They learned in detail about the R&D and industrial application of deep-sea food technologies, major progress in applied basic research on coastal and ocean engineering, and the construction of high-end vessels and marine engineering equipment.

Yang called for leveraging local strengths in marine resource endowments and industrial foundations, while focusing on the strategic deployment made in the outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) regarding the strengthening of marine development, utilization and conservation. Efforts must be made to achieve breakthroughs in key core technologies and foster the growth of clusters of emerging marine industries, he said.

Yang underscored the importance of advancing the integrated development of education, science and technology, and human resources, and giving full play to the role of universities and research institutes as sources of innovation. He also called for reinforcing the principal role of enterprises in scientific and technological innovation, and deeply integrating scientific and technological innovation with industrial innovation, thereby injecting strong impetus into the high-quality development of the marine economy during the 15th Five-Year Plan period.