Business environment

Regional advantages

Known as the “Donghai Fish Warehouse”, Zhoushan city is the only prefecture-level administrative division made up of islands in the country. It is located on the southeast coast of China and the south side of the Yangtze River estuary.

There are 1,390 islands of different sizes in Zhoushan, about 20 percent of the total number of islands in China. Major islands include Zhoushan Island, Laoshan Island, Zhujiajian Island, Liuheng Island and Jintang Island, among which Zhoushan Island is the largest, with an area of 502 square kilometers. It is also the fourth largest island in China.

Zhoushan is in the southern margin of the subtropical oceanic monsoon climate. It is warm in winter and cool in summer. The mild climate, abundant sunshine and moderate rainfall provide a favorable environment for the development of fisheries and agriculture, and also makes the city an ideal place to live and run businesses.

Zhoushan is located at the intersection of the eastern coastline of China and the estuary of the Yangtze River. As one of the main gateways for international marine communication, it exerts its influence among many southeastern countries and regions, including South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong and Macao. The Zhoushan sea-crossing bridge project was officially opened to traffic at the end of 2009. In addition, there are several high-speed passenger ferry routes and car ferry routes connecting Shanghai and Ningbo. The city's open port area covers 1,193 sq km.

Natural resources

With a land area of 1,440 sq km and an inland sea area of 20,800 sq km, Zhoushan boasts abundant tourism resources, profound Buddhist culture and marine culture.

It is one of the cities with the best ambient air quality in the country. The proportion of good and fair air quality in Zhoushan city has risen to more than 99.4 percent every year, and its forest coverage rate remains stable at over 50 percent.

The scattered islands, magnificent sea views, clean beaches, exotic Buddhist temples, agreeable climate and unique folk customs of the islands make the city a tourist mecca for visitors from both home and abroad.

The Zhoushan Archipelago has more than 1,000 tourist attractions featuring Buddhist culture, mountainous landscapes and fishery customs. National-level scenic spots, including Putuo Mountain and Yuli Island, and provincial-level scenic spots such as Laoshan and Taohua islands, help to attract a large number of tourists to the city and contribute a significant amount to the total revenue of local marine tourism.

More than 500 species of marine creatures such as fish, shrimp, shellfish and algae can be found on Zhoushan. It is also endowed with beautiful natural landscape, with two national-level scenic spots in the territory, including Putuo Mountain, which was one of the first batch of national 5A scenic spots in China.

The city has a water depth of more than 15 meters and a coastline of 200 km. The port area is 1,000 sq km. The main channel can pass more than 200,000 tons of ships.

As a strategic resource, the length of deep-water coastline in Zhoushan accounts for nearly one-fifth of the total length of the country. At present, more than 117 km of coastline have been utilized.

Local industries

Zhoushan boasts various industries including modern fishery, seafood deep-processing, marine electronic information, and tourism.

The largest fishery, the Zhoushan Fishery, is located in the city. There are about 1,163 species of fish in the fishery, including large yellow croaker, small yellow croaker, octopus and cuttlefish.

A series of ocean fishing bases has been constructed to cope with the rapid development of the modern fishery industry, including the Zhoushan National Ocean Fishing Base, Zhoushan National Green Fishing Research Base and Zhoushan Fishing Town.

The development of the marine biology and seafood deep-processing industries in Zhoushan has a long history. Since the country launched its reform and opening-up policy, the local seafood deep-processing industry has experienced three stages of development: industrialization, industrial chain development and block development.

Zhoushan city has built five industrial clusters: Shenjiamen Marine Biological Park, Puxi Industrial Park, Ganshilan Aquatic Product Processing Park, Daishan Gaoting Aquatic Processing Enterprise Cluster Area, and Shengsi Aquatic Processing Enterprise Cluster Area.

The city is making constant efforts to transform and upgrade the industrial structure of its seafood deep-processing industry, with focuses on 10 major areas: ocean fishing, raw material imports, production of marine and biological products, finished product trading, the domestic market, scientific research, talent, logistics and warehousing, information and finance.

Zhoushan also focuses on building a smart marine application demonstration base and a marine electronic information industrial base, as well as a national marine data center in the city. A marine data comprehensive service platform and an application platform are also under construction.

It also puts emphasis on fostering marine big-data technology, marine satellite communications technology, vessel electronics manufacturing, and ocean exploration instruments and equipment manufacturing.

The city government has initiated a number of smart marine application and demonstration projects, such as the Marine Big-data Center, the Ocean Satellite Network and the Smart Fishery Service Platform.