China will increase its use of marine resources, Shou Jiahua, Vice-Minister of Land and Resources, said Sunday in the on-going Marine Festival held in Qingdao in the coastal city of the east China's province of Shandong.
With sufficient marine resources to explore, China would speed up its pace to develop its marine economy, Shou Jiahua said. One important way for China to achieve a balanced relationship between population, resources and the environment was to use more marine resources. At present, China still lagged behind many developed nations in terms of ocean exploration and exploitation.
In recent years, China's marine economy has developed rapidly. Some 60 percent of Gross National Product (GNP) comes from China's east coast region though it comprises just 13 percent of the country's land.
As a global trend in the new century is to develop and utilize marine resources, abundant marine resources will provide new scope for humanity facing shrinking land resources, a worsening global environment and huge population increase according to experts.
(China Daily July 15, 2002)
