The Blue Bonds, Marine SMEs, and Technology Financing Roadshow (Qingdao Station) was recently held to connect sustainable marine development projects, SMEs, and technological innovations with multi-tiered capital markets. Nine marine SMEs and tech innovation teams from coastal regions presented their projects to investors, collectively seeking over 740 million yuan in funding.

This event, the second Blue Bond roadshow held in China, followed the inaugural session in Qingdao in 2023. It attracted over 80 in-person participants, including representatives from marine resource authorities in 12 coastal provinces and 25 Qingdao-based financial institutions specializing in marine industries, with nearly 300 additional participants joining online.

Blue bonds are a category of debt instruments issued to raise funds for sustainable ocean development, with their issuance surging over the past two years. More than 30 blue bonds had been issued in China's domestic market by the end of November 2024, raising over 30 billion yuan. These funds have significantly supported sectors such as offshore wind energy, seawater desalination, deep-sea aquaculture equipment, green shipping, water treatment, and the sustainable use of marine resources.

The showcased blue bond project focused on a Marine Sustainability Industrial Park, leveraging IoT and AI technologies to provide marine waste management services and advanced equipment to over 10 coastal cities and 60 ports in China. Other projects featured in the roadshow included innovations in marine IoT, bio-food development, marine-derived pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, aquaculture processing technologies, efficient wave-energy generation systems, and floating offshore photovoltaics. These projects span industries such as marine equipment, renewable energy, and marine biomedicine.

Co-hosted by the Marine Strategic Planning and Economics Department of the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, the event was jointly organized by the North Sea Bureau of the Ministry of Natural Resources, the National Marine Data & Information Service (NMDIS), the Qingdao Marine Development Bureau, Shenzhen Securities Information, and the SZSE V-Next Matchmaking Platform of Innovation Finance.