EC-Link provided significant support to this project, which helped the project development and increased its bankability through a Pre-feasibility study process. The EC-Link project also identified the green financing resources and steered the project preparation to meet specific requirements of Shandong Green Development Fund. The detail Technical Support included: a) developing the project to maximise green impact and to document this impact so as to meet the eligibility criteria of downstream green financing, through rigorously documenting the results of the Pre-Feasibility Study; and b) stakeholder capacity building and trainings on green finance.
Weihai city is located at the eastern end of Shandong Peninsula, bordering the Yellow Sea in the north, east and south. it is an important marine industry and coastal tourism city. It is the Chinese mainland city closest to Tokyo, Japan and Seoul, Korea. Rushan city is under Weihai administration, which is located in the hinterland of Qingdao, Weihai and Yantai, with a coastline of 199.27km. The marine ecological and coastline environment have an extremely important impact to the city and vice versa. EC-link provided Technical Assistance to Weihai and Helped develop and document a number of coastal restoration projects in Rushan city. These projects will improve the coastal areas environment and enhance resilience to marine disasters. Three major restoration projects received EC-link assistance to develop project Pre-feasibility studies. The study results will assist the city to apply for finance from the Shandong Green Development Fund for a total investment of 562million CNY. The projects are all located in Rushan city, the three projects are:
- Haiyangsuo Town Eastern Coastline Ecological Restoration Project;
- Haiyangsuo Town Southern Coastline Ecological Restoration Project;
- Baishakou- to- Shangdong Coastline Ecological Restoration Project.
Critical environmental issues are addressed by the implementation of the project. Due to increasing offshore aquaculture and development activities, the coastal ecological environment in the project area has been damaged due to environmentally inappropriate activities and practices. These have seriously changed and in some cases destroyed the structure and natural appearance of the coastline. They affected the natural ecology and landscape of the coastal zone, weakening local ecosystem functioning.
