With nearly two million square kilometres of territorial waters, Hainan Province has vast sea dominion. Over the past 30 years, Hainan's marine economy has expanded big time. CGTN's Li Jianhua visited a marine pharmaceutical company on the island, but as he reports, the marine industry in the province needs more investment.

Glittering pearls. They are the symbol of Hainan.

Best known as ornaments, they are also ingredients in Chinese medicine used as an anti-inflammatory agent.

Feeding them into a grinding machine, the diameter of the powder grains falls to 300 nanometres, fine enough to go into medicine.

Filling the medicine with pearl powder into lines of vials, they are ready for sale.

LI CAIGUANG, GENERAL MANAGER HAINAN GN PEARL BIOTECHNOLOGY "Sales of health care products, especially those containing pearl powder, have been increasing rapidly recently. I believe we will see more development in this field in the years to come. The government has been providing financial support - last year we got some investment from the local government, which will be beneficial to our research on pearl-related products."

Figures show Hainan's aquaculture area is 300-thousand square kilometres, accounting for more than one-sixth of its waters. Marine economy has expanded from less than 6 percent of its GPD to nearly 30 percent over the past three decades.

But experts say development of the island's marine industry is actually lagging behind.

ZHENG SHIPU, SECRETARY GENERAL HAINAN MARINE INDUSTRY ALLIANCE "Hainan has wide marine dominion, but to be honest this province is not strong in its marine production. The landscape of its marine industry is not as large as we think - we don't have many entities on the island actually. Marine biotechnology is a new strategic industry, which has a high demand for talent and technology, but Hainan is still weak in its innovation and technology cultivation."

The local government has promised to grow the marine economy to 200 billion yuan, or around 32 billion US dollars, by 2020.

LI JIANHUA HAIKOU, HAINAN "The development of drugs from natural marine products is relatively new in China. Experts say this industry has not developed as fast as expected. Investments are badly needed to cultivate more talents and technologies to boost this industry and make it one of the tropical island's economic pillars. LJH, CGTN, HAIKOU, HAINAN PROVINCE."