INTER-ISLAND SERVICE: A vessel serving islets of Sansha City returns to port at the Yongxing Island on July 18 (ZHAO YINGQUAN)

A better life for locals

According to newspaper International Tourism Island Business Daily based in Haikou, capital city of Hainan Province, Nansha Islands and their surrounding 820,000-sq-km waters are a prime fishery resource, with an estimated potential for 1.8 million tons a year of more than 20 kinds of valuable fish. Chinese fishermen have been exploring this area since ancient times.

Xiao said that before Sansha was established, infrastructure was nonexistent in many islets and reefs settled by fishermen. Docks, water, electricity and waste processing facilities did not exist, and without ferry services, fishermen had to transport key supplies themselves.

Since its establishment, Sansha has made great efforts to improve local residents' living conditions.

Fishermen running an aquaculture farm in Meiji Reef in the Nansha Islands used to live aboard their ships due to harsh natural conditions. Newspaper Strait Metropolis Daily reported in January that a village was set up on the reef last December for 53 fishermen and a 1,000-ton concrete platform being built in Sanya on the Hainan Island would be installed atop the reef for suites with bathrooms, generators, a gym and a vegetable garden.

In the first three months of this year alone, several fishery companies in Hainan won government consent to build deep-sea fish farms in islets and reefs in Xisha and Nansha islands. Local newspapers in the province reported that the total number of fishing cages in Sansha has shown exponential annual growth.

Sansha officially established its first power supply company on August 28, 2012. It started replacing Yongxing's present 400-volt grid to a more reliable 10-kilovolt network in June and the upgrade is expected to be completed before November.

China Southern Power Grid, one of two state-owned power companies in China, drafted a plan to invest no less than 300 million yuan ($48.4 million) to build electricity systems over the next five years to turn Sansha into a model of low-carbon consumption. However, the planned grid will only cover Yongxing and Zhaoshu islands.

China Telecom, one of the country's three major phone carriers, announced on June 27 that it had extended its 3G signal to cover seven larger reefs of the Nansha Islands and their surrounding waters, to serve military staff, fishermen and government vessels within the area. Deployment of the service network took only 49 days.

Photovoltaic (PV) manufacturer Yingli Solar has donated PV systems worth a total of 5 million yuan ($806,000) to 120 households on remote islets in Sansha. Installed in April, the PV systems can generate nearly 70,000 kwh of electricity per year.