According to the unique regional position, natural resource advantages and existing marine industry foundation, the provincial Party Committee and People’s Government of Jiangsu list the marine industry as a key industry to be developed in the river reach of Nantong, when implementing River Reach Development Strategy of Jiangsu. Therefore, they have instructed Nantong to enlarge and strengthen the marine industry and develop Nantong as the Asian-largest and world-famous shipbuilding and repairing base. Nantong enjoys the advantages of “right time, right place and right people” to develop the marine industry with huge potential.

　　1. Advantage of unique regional position. Nantong is located in the north bank of estuary of the Yangtze River, close to the river and sea, with over 430 km river and sea strand line. The Yangtze River Line is straight with small wave, deep water and silt; the coastal Lvsi and Yangkou are estuaries of ancient Yangtze River with no silt and good place for deep-water seaports. Nantong enjoys moderate climate, moderate rainfall, few fog days, no head-on typhoon attack and no frost and possesses the natural condition to launch a large-scale marine and marine equipment project.

　　2. Good marine industrial base. The Yangtze Delta Region where Nantong is located is the most marine-industry-clustered region in China. The shipbuilding, repairing and marine equipment industries in this region keep ahead in China. Certain industrial cluster and enterprise cluster with regional features are formed in the region. As a key city and one of primary industrial bases in the Yangtze Delta Region, Nantong has 100 marine supporting equipment producers in addition to the aforesaid three large-scaled ship building and repairing enterprises within the city coverage of 200 km and enjoys the advantage to develop itself as a marine industrial base.

　　3. Chance brought by the shift of global shipbuilding industry. The world shipbuilding industry is gradually shifting to low-cost countries. The comprehensive comparative advantage of human resource cost, market potential, industrial supporting ability, and soft/hard investment environment enjoyed by China and especially Nantong determines that China will be one of the developing countries that are most qualified to take up the new round shift of international shipbuilding and repairing industry. Upgrading of numerous foreign and domestic oil carriers, accelerated development of container carrier enlargement, and sharp increase of ocean shipping volume of natural gas provide a chance and possibility for Nantong shipbuilding, repairing and equipment industries to play big based on its already achieved scale and established foundation.

　　4. Strengthened driving force of backbone companies. Current three large-scale “backbone” enterprises of COSCO KHI, COSCO SHIPYARD and COSCO STEEL STRUCTURE have laid a foundation for shipbuilding, repairing and equipment industry in Nantong. Influenced by such three “backbones”, tens of shipbuilding, repairing and supporting companies are distributed along the strand lines of the Yangtze River, Yellow Sea and inland rivers. Many of them have reached certain scale and achieved certain level in terms of their production, technology and management. With the implementation of Singapore Keppel and Shanghai Rong Sheng Shipbuilding projects, the economic and technical advantages arising from enterprise convergence has been revealed and thus a good environment is established to attract foreign and domestic enterprises of the same type.

　　5. High-quality labor resource. Nantong is a famous “hometown of education” in China with comparatively developed vocational education. In Nantong, there are specialized marine colleges and vocational education schools of high and middle level technical colleges to cultivate a lot of professional shipbuilding and equipment building technicians for various enterprises. Nantong is also a famous “hometown of plate weld” in China and enjoys the fame of shipping labor service export in China and overseas. The numerous shipbuilding and repairing enterprises have also cultivated a great number of skilled technical talents. Now there are nearly 20,000 Nantong’s skilled workers working in foreign and domestic large-scale shipyards.