Under a five-year development plan, municipal authorities hope to transform the image of Dongshan Island in Zhangzhou from an impoverished fishing village into an international tourism and port city.
To achieve the goal, the county government has made infrastructure development, such as roads and ports, priorities.
Dongshan party secretary Huang Hanhe said Dongshan Bay was a natural deep-water port with a coastline long enough for up to 14 berths.
Dongshan port was Zhangzhou's first to open to international liners in December 1992.
Now, it has scheduled routes with container vessels from Hong Kong. The port has three berths, two of which can handle vessels of up to 5,000 deadweight tonnes (dwt).
'We are going to build two more berths to handle vessels up to 5,000 dwt,' Mr Huang said.