Located in the southeastern part of Guangdong Province, the city of Huizhou boasts a sea area of 4,520 square kilometers, 281.4 kilometers of coastline, and 162 natural islands.

On November 1, participants of the "Explore Guangdong along coastline" event arrived in Huizhou, a city with rich ocean resources, gaining in-depth insights into the city's latest development in marine industries.

In 2022, Huizhou's annual marine industry GDP reached about 114 billion RMB, accounting for about 21% of the city's GDP. Since 2020, the value of the marine economy has remained over 100 billion RMB.

The 14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of Marine Economy in Huizhou, issued and implemented by the Huizhou Municipal Government in 2023, announced that by 2025, the value of the marine economy will account for 25 percent of the city's GDP, and the annual throughput of port cargo will reach more than 120 million tons.

In recent years, Huizhou has been building a modern marine industry system led by coastal petrochemicals and focusing on coastal tourism, marine transportation, modern marine fisheries and coastal clean energy.

"Today we visited the SYSU-Huizhou Research Institute, where a lot of achievements in the marine industry have been developed, which is very interesting," said Yoon Seokjeong, a journalist from the ROK media Maeil Business Network.

SYSU-Huizhou Research Institute is a scientific and technological innovation platform specializing in the petrochemical industry. It was jointly established by the Sun Yat-sen University (SYSU) and the Administrative Committee of the Huizhou Daya Bay Economic and Technological Development Zone.

According to Wu Haibo, executive director of the SYSU-Huizhou Research Institute, aimed at meeting the innovation and development needs of the petrochemical industry in Huizhou, the Institute expands the technological innovation of Sun Yat-sen University and has established a scientific and technological result transformation chain characterized by "low-rate initial production + pilot scale production + enterprise incubation + result promotion," thereby accelerating result transformation.

Meanwhile, the Institute is capable of 1,850 test items, making it one of the institutions with the most complete third-party environmental test items in Guangdong Province. Its testing platform serves the Daya Bay Petrochemical Industrial Zone and even the entire Huizhou city, and the qualifications cover air and exhaust gas, recovery of oil and gas from gas stations, indoor air, noise and vibration, water and wastewater, seawater, marine sediments, soil, solid waste, etc. That contributes to the construction of a world-class petrochemical base in the Daya Bay Petrochemical Industrial Zone.

Furthermore, focusing on the petrochemical industry and the management of petrochemical industrial parks, the Institute provides on-the-job postgraduate training for neighboring enterprises and establishes internship bases with multiple firms.