Photo shows a national deep-ocean base under construction in Qingdao.

Construction on a series of new projects is underway, including a national base for deep ocean research and a national lab for ocean science and technologies.

In addition, the New Economic Zone on West Jiaozhou Bay is also being planned and built to support the emerging ocean-related sector. The zone will focus on manufacturing and logistics .

The new zone will cover the current Huangdao district and Jiaonan county. It will include a number of economic and development zones as well as a bonded zone and an export-processing zone. The Qingdao Qianwan Port Area and the Dongjiakou Port Area will also be included.

The economic zone "will help optimize resources and upgrade the industrial structure of the city," Li said.

In 2011 the city's entire ocean-related industry contributed 189 billion yuan to local GDP, up 12.3 percent compared with the previous year.

Local leaders expect marine enterprises to generate 115 billion yuan in annual GDP by 2015, with an estimated average growth rate of 16 percent. The target for 2020 is 220 billion yuan .

Qingdao is the largest base for shipbuilding and the production of marine equipment in Asia. The port city provides a link among a number of industry chains, such as shipbuilding and repair, diesel engine manufacturing, and marine engineering equipment.

There is also a base for the biological technology industry in the city, and it is the only one in the nation specializing in marine organisms.

As an international transportation and logistics hub, the city has opened itself to 108 airlines. The ports of Qingdao handled 372 million tons of cargo in 2011, ranking seventh worldwide, and more than 12 million cargo containers, ranking eighth.