New Quality Productivity Empowering New Drivers of Marine Economic Growth

Driven by climate change, geoeconomic competition and the "Blue Engine" strategy, the ocean has become a new frontier in the global resource game, and the marine economy is emerging as a new engine for economic growth in coastal countries and regions. Based on the panel data from 53 coastal prefecture-level cities in China from 2004 to 2022, this study constructs a dual machine learning model to investigate the impact and mechanism of new quality productivity on marine economic growth. The results show that the level of new quality productivity in China's coastal areas is on the rise, and that new quality productivity positively empowers marine economic growth by promoting the innovative allocation of production factors. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that new quality productivity has a more significant impact on marine economic growth in the southern marine economic zone and regions with low talent endowments. Therefore, China should accelerate the development of new quality productivity, innovatively allocate production factors to traditional, emerging, and future industries in the ocean, promote the coordinated development of new quality productivity in the northern, eastern, and southern marine economic zones. These measures aim to comprehensively empower new drivers of marine economic growth with new quality productivity and promote the construction of a maritime power.