'Maritime Silk Road' of old headed for revival

Shown here is an aerial view of the coastal city of Zhanjiang. Provided to China Daily

More than 2,000 years ago, the ancient Maritime Silk Road started at Sandun Port in Xuwen county in Zhanjiang.

Now the harbor city in South China's Guangdong is striving to build a modern equivalent of the ancient route.

On his maiden Southeast Asian trip in October, President Xi Jinping proposed that countries in the region join hands in building a new "Maritime Silk Road".

The concept symbolizes China's maritime partnership with Southeast Asian neighbors, and it represents an overture toward solving territorial disputes in the nation's surrounding sea areas.

Zhanjiang lies at the mainland's southernmost corner. In terms of distance by sea, the city is closer to Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and Oceania than any other in China.

For this reason, Zhanjiang was among the country's first cities to open its gates to foreign trade and investment in 1984, and it serves as Guangdong's economic gateway to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

"The central government's proposal of building the 21st-century Maritime Silk Road is a lamp that lights the path of Zhanjiang's further open-up, and it makes full use of the city's marine resource advantages," said Liu Xiaohua, the city's Party chief.

"We will seize the opportunity to build an open economy, make leaps in development and join the big league as soon as possible."

Research on the history of the ancient trade route and the promotion of marine culture should be a starting point, said Lei Xiaoling, a professor from the Guangdong Ocean University's College of Food Science and Technology.

"The government and research institutes should sort the materials into a comprehensive presentation of the long history of Zhanjiang's marine trade and marine culture, so the public will know more about and be proud of the history and culture. Then they will pay attention to and participate in the building of the new Maritime Silk Road," Lei said.

Zhanjiang has a natural deep-water harbor and long coastlines totaling at 2023.6 kilometers. Located in the transitional climate area from the sub-tropics to the tropics, it has sufficient sunlight and rain as well as diverse types of marine life.

Commercial fishing has long been a competitive industry for Zhanjiang. About 460,000 people in the city work in the fishing industry. The annual capacity of the aquatic product processing factories across the city has reached 470,000 metric tons.

It is one of the country's biggest exporters of aquatic products. The export value of aquatic products totaled $830 million last year, accounting for 31.7 percent of the city's total exports.

However, the backward infrastructure of the old ports is dragging Zhanjiang's pace of developing the modern fishery, professor Lei told China Daily.

Lei, who is also a deputy to the National People's Congress, came to Beijing for the "two sessions" to call on the central government to support fishing port construction in the city.

Lei said that 35 fishing ports in Zhanjiang are accredited by the Ministry of Agriculture, but only 14 of them are receiving subsidies from the ministry for maintenance.

"Zhanjiang is still an underdeveloped city so it is difficult to maintain and upgrade the fishing ports relying on the local government's finance alone," she said.

"The ministry's financial support should cover all the 35 ports it has accredited."

Zhanjiang's government work report, which came out in January, set goals for upgrading fishing boats and building advanced fleets for oceanic fishing.

These concrete steps show a determination to develop the marine economy and a modern fishing industry, according to the government.

xujingxi@chinadaily.com.cn