QINGDAO, (Xinhua) -- Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) kicked off a grand maritime ceremony to mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of its navy in the evening of April 20 in Qingdao. The celebration, with a theme of "peaceful ocean," is to strengthen security cooperation at sea and create a harmonious ocean environment together.

    The opening ceremony of the multi- national navy activities and the large-scale reception were held at No. 3 wharf of Qingdao Harbor at 18:00. PLA Navy Commander Admiral Wu Shengli attended the opening ceremony and delivered a speech.

    In his address at the opening ceremony, Wu first expressed gratitude on behalf of the PLA Navy to naval officials and soldiers from across the world for their participation in China's celebration. Through six decades of development, a modern force for maritime operations has taken shape, consisting of combined arms with both nuclear and conventional means of operations.

    Wu pointed out that the ocean is the homeland of navies of all nations, maintaining a peaceful and harmonious ocean has always been an obligation of naval forces around the world. He hailed the operations of navy ships, from a dozen countries, in the waters off the Golf of Aden and Somali coast that aimed to protect the safety of respective commercial ships.

    The admiral stressed that to build a "peaceful, harmonious and cooperative" ocean is the theme and expectation of China Navy hosting this event, he wished the festivities could serve as an opportunity for different countries to obtain a better picture of China's naval forces and increase exchanges and mutual understanding for more cooperation between countries to safeguard oceanic safety.

    At the opening ceremony and the large-scale reception, military bands from different countries carried out joint performance. Then New Zealand navy delegation performed its traditional Morris Dance. And the opening ceremony and the large-scale reception was ended with a show of fireworks.

    Heads of each navy delegations, representatives of seamen of the 21 warships from 14 countries and China navy, top municipal leaders of Qingdao Xia Geng, Wang Wei, Zang Aimin, Hu Shaojun and people from all walks of life attended the opening ceremony.

    In major celebration or festivals activities, hosting multi-national navy exchanges festivities is a tradition of the navy of each countries. In the following several days, the navy delegations from 29 countries will attend seminars, a sampan race and a fleet review.

    During preparation of the multi-national naval event, the host city Qingdao stepped up security for the celebration. Combat divers were dispatched in the ports where the naval vessels berthed. Qingdao Frontier Entry and Exit Inspection Station made special inspection scheme, allocate skillful staff, who have good commend of English, to form special inspection group to simplify the customer clearance process and shorten the clearance time.