NANJING - East China's Jiangsu province saw its gross ocean product (GOP) increase 12.5 percent year-on-year in 2021, the highest growth over the last three years, said the provincial natural resources department.

Jiangsu's GOP reached 924.9 billion yuan ($138.7 billion) last year, accounting for 7.9 percent of the provincial gross domestic product (GDP) and 10.2 percent of the country's total GOP, according to the department.

River and sea ports in the province handed over 630 million tons of cargo in the first quarter of 2022, a year-on-year growth of 6.2 percent, and the container throughput grew 6.3 percent year-on-year to 5.12 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in the same period.

Jiangsu saw its shipbuilding holding orders hit 45.3 million deadweight tons in the first quarter this year, a year-on-year increase of 43.3 percent.

With 954 km of coastline and 37,500 square km of sea area, Jiangsu aims to claim 40 percent of the domestic market and 18 percent of the international market in the shipbuilding and offshore engineering industry by 2025, according to a provincial development plan.