Pricing method and empirical study of China’s sea area resources assets

Establishing a research system for the pricing method of sea area resource assets is an important task to improve the property rights management of sea area resource assets. This paper presents a basic framework for pricing sea area resource assets and conducts an empirical study on China’s sea area resources. The methodology involves four different steps: i) division of China’s sea area into 25 spatial units based on the similarity of location, environment and resources; ii) division of the sea area resource assets into seven functional use types based on marine functional zoning; iii) assessment of the quality level for each functional use type in each spatial unit; and iv) measurement of the prices of the sea area resource assets for each quality level and each functional type, using the income method pricing model. Results indicate that the prices of sea area resource assets vary greatly between different quality levels and different functional use types in China. Factors such as location condition, natural and social attributes can affect the pricing, and the location condition is the most important one among others. Besides, the discount rate of sea area resource assets is determined considering both current economic benefits and future sustainable welfares. Therefore, the pricing of sea area resource assets can serve as the premise of optimal allocation of such assets, and can provide a value scale for sea area resource transactions that are necessary in the assessment of sustainable development pathways.