News from Jiangsu Provincial Department of Natural Resources recently read that 280 “Little Giant” companies engaging in the marine industry, or 13.7% of all “Little Giant” companies in Jiangsu, have entered the sixth batch of national-level “Little Giant” companies list. “Little Giant” companies refer to SMEs that use special and sophisticated technologies to produce novel and unique products.

“One outstanding feature of Jiangsu’smarine economy is that our marine engineering equipment manufacturing and marine shipbuilding are taking the lead in China,” said Qian Linfeng, director of Jiangsu Provincial Marine Economy Monitoring and Evaluation Center. According to statistics released by National Marine Information Center, Jiangsu contributed 15.1% to uplifting the marine emerging industry index of China in 2023, ranking first in the country. Jiangsu now houses 77 national-level “Little Giant” companies in marine engineering equipment manufacturing, 78 such companies in marine materials manufacturing and 55 in marine shipbuilding industry, accounting for 27.5%, 27.9% and 19.6% of Jiangsu’s total, respectively. Among all the national-level marine-related “Little Giants” in Jiangsu, 55 or 19.6% of the total are in Suzhou, which houses the largest number among all the prefecture-level cities, and closely followed by Wuxi and Nanjing, with 16.1% and 13.2% of all such companies, respectively. Nanjing stands out, where “Little Giant” marine companies grew remarkably. In the time span from 2019 to 2024, the number of marine-related “Little Giants” in Nanjing increased from zero to 45, now ranking second in Jiangsu. Nantong, one of the three coastal cities in Jiangsu, registered major progress in the development of marine-related companies, with 36 such companies on the list of national-level “Little Giant” companies.