China is gearing up to expand to producing luxury ships. (Photo : Getty Images)
Government-owned China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC) and Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri Cantieri Navali Italiana SpA are set to formalize their joint venture in Hong Kong. The venture is valued at 25 billion yuan or $3.74 billiion.
The two shipbuilding giants will build five mega cruise liners that have a capacity of 5,000 passengers each. This will be China's first luxury liner.
The Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding Company, a subsidiary of CSSC, will be handle the ships' construction. Each ship will weigh 133,500 tons with a length exceeding 300 meters. The cost of building per ship is estimated at 5 billion yuan.
According to Chen Gan, vice-president of Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding Company, the ships' interior will be Chinese-inspired. Guestrooms will have interiors similar to a traditional Shanghai guestroom or a Beijing courtyard. A special department was formed to start working on the designs of the ships. The design layout is expected to be completed by 2017.
This is the first time that China has embarked on building luxury ships. The CSSC is known to be the forerunner of Chinese marine engineering and trade of military and civilian ships.
The top global luxury shipbuilders are Germany, Italy and France. These European ship manufacturers hold up to 90 percent of the world's supply of ships. Their Asian counterparts, South Korea and Japan, are incapable of building cruise ships independently.
"Cruise liners are the only high-tech ship products that China has yet to master," said Dong Liwan, a shipping industry professor at Shanghai Maritime University.
The CSSC is optimistic that the joint venture will open new opportunities for them. This venture will make way for China to enter the very lucrative luxury cruise industry.
