The secretary and the mayor unveiled the plaque. What is the background of this institution in Ningbo?

According to Ningbo Release and Ningbo Daily, on June 10, Wang Cheng, Deputy Secretary of the Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee and Secretary of the Ningbo Municipal Party Committee, presided over a special meeting of the municipal party committee to study and deploy the high - quality development of the marine economy. Before the meeting, Wang Cheng and Tang Feifan, Deputy Secretary of the Ningbo Municipal Party Committee and Mayor of Ningbo, jointly unveiled the Ningbo Marine Economic Development Bureau.

Photo source: Ningbo Daily

According to the approvals of the Central Institutional Organization Commission and the Zhejiang Provincial Institutional Organization Commission, Ningbo has independently established the Ningbo Marine Economic Development Bureau as a working department of the municipal government, with an institutional rank of deputy department - level. The responsibilities related to marine economic development of departments such as the Municipal Development and Reform Commission, the Municipal Transportation Bureau, the Municipal Agriculture and Rural Affairs Bureau, and the Municipal Natural Resources and Planning Bureau have been transferred to it. It is mainly responsible for leading the promotion of marine economic development.

The ocean is a strategic area for China's high - quality development, and the marine economy has become an important growth pole of the national economy.

As a coastal province in the east, Zhejiang has a land area of only more than 100,000 square kilometers, but its sea area exceeds 260,000 square kilometers. This sharp contrast between a "small land - area province" and a "large marine - area province" made Zhejiang realize early on that "the ocean is where Zhejiang's future development potential, advantages, and hopes lie."

At the beginning of 2024, in the new round of institutional reform, Zhejiang established the first provincial - level Marine Economic Development Department in the country, which is responsible for coordinating work related to the ocean and ports and promoting the development of the marine economy. After that, Zhoushan, Taizhou and other places successively established municipal marine economic development bureaus. At that time, the Ningbo Development and Reform Commission also added the sign of the Ningbo Marine Economic Development Bureau.

This "upgrade" means that Ningbo's determination to promote the high - quality development of the marine economy has been comprehensively "upgraded".

Ningbo has 1/6 of Zhejiang's islands, 1/5 of its sea area, and 1/4 of its coastline. In 2025, the cargo throughput of Ningbo - Zhoushan Port exceeded 1.4 billion tons, ranking first in the world for 17 consecutive years; the container throughput exceeded 43 million TEUs, ranking third in the world.

During the 14th Five - Year Plan period, the average annual growth rate of the city's marine GDP was 12.9%, 7 percentage points higher than the average annual growth rate of GDP during the same period. In 2025, this figure reached 306.7 billion yuan, accounting for 24% of the total marine economic volume of the province and 16.4% of Ningbo's GDP.

However, compared with cities such as Shanghai, Qingdao, Shenzhen, Tianjin, and Guangzhou, the scale of Ningbo's marine GDP is still relatively small. Local media have bluntly pointed out that compared with advanced cities at home and abroad, Ningbo has not yet entered the "first echelon" of strong marine cities in China.

More importantly, there are obvious shortcomings in Ningbo in terms of marine scientific and technological innovation capabilities, high - end port and shipping services, and marine resource development models. There is still a significant gap between Ningbo and benchmark cities in terms of attracting high - end talents and cultivating emerging industries.

Therefore, Ningbo has clearly set the goal of "building an innovative modern marine city" and written it into the Outline of the 15th Five - Year Plan.

According to the latest deployment, Ningbo should adhere to the strategy of making the ocean a source of strength, coordinate land and sea development, and venture into the "deep blue". It should comprehensively build an innovative modern marine city with advanced marine science and technology, developed marine industries, excellent marine ecology, prosperous marine culture, and efficient marine governance, and accelerate the promotion of its comprehensive strength in the marine economy to the forefront of the country.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Urban Evolution Theory", author: Liu Yanmei. It is published by 36Kr with authorization.