In recent years, the blue economy has emerged as a pivotal sector in global economic development, particularly for nations endowed with expansive maritime resources and coastal advantages. Central to understanding its transformative potential is the concept of the National Blue Economic System (NBES), a framework that encapsulates the interplay between products, firms, and geographic regions within this dynamic economic sphere. Recent applied research focusing on China’s NBES sheds light on the intricate diversification processes that underpin value creation and competitive advantage in this sector, revealing critical insights into how industries evolve and adapt within the blue economy landscape.
At the heart of this research is the examination of diversification across three interconnected levels: blue products, blue firms, and blue provinces. Unlike traditional economic models focusing solely on product or firm performance, this multi-tiered approach recognizes that an economy’s capacity to innovate and expand its export portfolio depends heavily on the interdependent evolution of these agents. Blue products, defined by their relevance to marine and maritime industries, form expansive product chains that reflect a country’s technological progress and export potential. The research underscores that those product chains are not static but evolve through continuous technological upgrading, driving the internal mechanics of economic value creation.
Further complexity is added by zooming into the firm level, where “blue firms” serve as the mesoscopic drivers of diversification. These organizations cultivate and manage product portfolios based on resource endowments—natural, technological, and capital-based—and play a pivotal role in shaping market dynamics. The diversity within these firms both influences and reflects their product specialization, illustrating a feedback loop where firm-level diversification shapes broader industrial capabilities and vice versa. This relationship is paramount in deciphering how economic agents respond to shifting global demands and competitive pressures in the blue economy.
Expanding the lens to a geospatial perspective, the concept of “blue provinces” highlights the spatial distribution of competitiveness and diversification capacities within a country. These provinces are not mere administrative units but spatial carriers of networked trade interactions among blue firms. The establishment of blue province networks, informed by trade exchanges and collaborative ventures, forms a tangible blueprint of economic specialization and potential synergies. This spatial mapping serves as a guide for policymakers aiming to leverage regional strengths while addressing disparities in development across coastal and inland provinces.
Crucially, the research introduces quantitative techniques to measure diversification within the NBES, employing what is termed a maximum proximity matrix. This advanced method calculates the relatedness among blue products, allowing a systematic evaluation of both current export categories and untapped potential products. By doing so, it offers a predictive insight into which product diversifications are feasible and lucrative based on inherent technological and economic proximities, transforming diversification from a mere descriptive measure into a strategic instrument for economic planning.
At the firm level, this analytical framework extends into identifying potential expansion areas for blue firms’ export portfolios. The selective targeting of new product categories informed by diversification metrics enables firms to optimize resource allocation, especially useful in environments of limited capital and innovation capacity. This strategic orientation marks a shift from random diversification towards informed, capability-based expansion, which can lead to stronger competitive positions in international markets.
Regional competitiveness, meanwhile, is gauged through measures of blue firm diversification and export industry categories within provinces. This approach elucidates the underlying factors shaping provincial development strategies. Provinces with well-diversified blue firms can better harness economies of scale and scope, develop robust industrial clusters, and implement more nuanced policy interventions. This insight directly informs provincial decision-makers seeking to balance growth objectives with realistic assessments of local capacities.
The temporal dimension is equally vital in this discourse. By analyzing export structures over a 33-year period (1985–2018), the research captures the evolutionary patterns of diversification in the NBES. Findings reveal a coordinated growth trajectory between land-based and maritime economies, yet vividly illustrate persistent disparities between coastal and inland provinces. Coastal regions typically demonstrate strong diversification and dynamic industrial clusters, while many inland provinces lag behind, hampered by limited access to maritime resources and underdeveloped blue firm networks.
Delving into the roots of these disparities, resource allocation becomes a focal point of analysis. The differential intensity of technology integration, capital investments, and information flows among blue firms contributes to uneven development paths across provinces. This heterogeneity not only affects firm-level performance but aggregates to wider structural imbalances in provincial economies, necessitating targeted policy interventions to bridge gaps and foster cohesive growth.
One proposed strategic priority emerging from these insights is the enhanced flow and agglomeration of production factors—technology, capital, and information—across provincial boundaries. Encouraging interprovincial cooperation and resource sharing offers a promising pathway to compensate for inherent geographical disadvantages, amplify collective innovation potential, and stabilize the broader NBES. In practice, this may involve incentivizing joint ventures, deploying infrastructure that facilitates knowledge exchange, and harmonizing regulatory frameworks.
Despite the comprehensive nature of this research, two notable limitations warrant consideration. The first pertains to firm-level heterogeneity: variables such as firm size, ownership structures, and innovation capacities were only tangentially addressed, yet these factors critically influence the ability of firms to diversify their exports. Future work integrating detailed firm-level data could enrich understanding of these dynamics and inform more differentiated policy instruments.
The second limitation concerns the external environmental context, prominently including the marine ecosystem itself. As a contextual factor, marine environmental health and sustainability profoundly affect the economic viability and diversification potential within the blue economy. However, current models have yet to systematically incorporate such ecological variables into the diversification analysis, highlighting an important frontier for interdisciplinary research that merges oceanography, environmental science, and economics.
China’s case study within this research offers unique empirical evidence, given its extensive coastline, vast marine resources, and rapidly evolving blue industries. The NBES framework applied provides a robust analytical tool to dissect the complexities of export diversification, illustrating how macroeconomic phenomena directly translate into firm-level behaviors and province-level outcomes. This multilevel comprehension equips policymakers, scholars, and industry leaders with a sophisticated understanding of both opportunities and constraints.
As global emphasis on sustainable blue economic development grows, insights derived from such systemic analyses carry far-reaching implications. Countries aiming to harness their marine assets must consider diversification not simply as product expansion but as an interconnected process involving firm capabilities, regional networks, technological proximity, and environmental sustainability. Embracing this complexity will be key to building resilient, competitive, and inclusive blue economies for the future.
Going forward, integrating more granular data on firm heterogeneity and systematically embedding marine environmental variables into NBES models will refine and expand the explanatory power of diversification studies. Moreover, advancing technological innovations—such as AI-driven analytics and big data applications—could revolutionize how economic geography and industrial diversification are mapped and predicted.
Interprovincial collaboration mechanisms also deserve intensified attention. The strategic rebalancing of production factors across spatial boundaries has the potential not only to elevate lagging regions but to foster a coherent, nationally integrated blue economy. Harnessing the full promise of this potential requires policy designs that incentivize knowledge sharing, cross-sector alliances, and sustainable resource use.
In sum, this research marks a significant advance in blue economic scholarship, providing a multidimensional, empirically grounded framework that transcends traditional sectoral and regional analyses. By foregrounding the interdependencies across products, firms, and provinces, it opens new pathways for understanding the complex architecture of maritime economic growth and diversification.
For stakeholders invested in the future of coastal and marine economies, these findings underline the necessity of a holistic, dynamic approach to economic development that equally values technological progress, spatial equity, and ecological stewardship. As the blue economy continues to ascend in global importance, having robust theoretical models and practical policy guidance such as those encapsulated in the NBES will prove indispensable for sustaining competitiveness and fostering equitable growth.
Subject of Research: Export diversification patterns within the National Blue Economic System (NBES), with a specific focus on China’s blue products, blue firms, and blue provinces.
Article Title: Export diversification in the national blue economic system: a case study of China.
Article References:
Qi, X. Export diversification in the national blue economic system: a case study of China.
Humanit Soc Sci Commun 12, 860 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-025-05143-w
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