Nation's shipbuilders ride crest of global success

Jewel in the crown

Delivered on Nov 4, 2023, Adora Magic City, the nation's first domestically built cruise ship, completed its 100th commercial voyage on March 10, marking a new milestone in China's cruise ship development.

The giant liner made its maiden commercial voyage on Jan 1, 2024.

The successful delivery and operation of the vessel meant China joined Italy, France, Germany and Finland as one of only five nations to design and build a cruise ship.

"Building Adora Magic City is a solid step in China's transition from the world's largest shipbuilder into a maritime power," said Wang, director of the design and research institute.

Building a cruise ship is the jewel in the crown of the shipbuilding industry, as the gigantic engineering project directly reflects a nation's scientific and technological level, and manufacturing strengths, Wang said.

A modern "city on the sea", Adora Magic City is a 323.6-meter-long and 37.2-meter-wide cruise ship that contains 107 systems, 55,000 sets of equipment, 25 million components and parts, 4,750 kilometers of cables, 365 km of pipelines and 120 km of air pipes.

"China's leapfrog from a follower to a global leader in just over four decades resulted from a number of factors including the guidance of national strategies, continuous breakthroughs in technological innovation, and in-depth integration with the global market," said Wang.

"Cruise market opportunities, along with green transformation and accelerated digital and intelligent transformation will bring unprecedented development opportunities to China's shipbuilding industry," Wang said.

Staying on top

China's shipbuilding industry has reached a critical historical juncture moving from scale leadership to value leadership, which is full of opportunities and challenges, Wang believes.

The domestic shipbuilding industry's rapid development has created the world's most complete industrial chain with good technological support and abundant talent.

"More importantly, it is an extremely healthy industry, allowing us to further develop and innovate the incremental market of cruise shipbuilding," said Yi.

Qin Qi, a senior engineer at the Marine Design & Research Institute of China said, "The process of China transiting from the world's largest shipbuilder to a maritime power is unstoppable".

"Strong support from the Chinese government, the gigantic domestic market, its complete industrial and manufacturing (base), and collaborative strengths guarantee the rise and rapid development of the country's shipbuilding industry," Qin said.

"In the meantime, the market mechanism allows China's shipbuilding industry to be competitive internationally through efficiency and quality.

"En route to becoming a world-class maritime power and shipbuilding power requires further reform and opening-up, and making quality, efficiency and technological advancement the priorities in every single task of shipbuilding," Qin said.