Chinese mainland's largest ship leasing center hits 1,000-vessel mark

An aerial drone photo taken on Feb. 2, 2024 shows a container vessel berthing at a container terminal of Tianjin Port in north China's Tianjin. [Photo/Xinhua]

A signing ceremony was held Wednesday for the 1,000th vessel leased through the Dongjiang Free Trade Port Zone (DFTP) in the northern Chinese municipality of Tianjin.

As the Chinese mainland's largest center for ship financing and leasing, the DFTP has now officially joined the world's 1,000-vessel leasing club.

The landmark vessel is a floating liquefied natural gas facility built in Singapore, with a total investment of nearly 1.8 billion U.S. dollars, including approximately 1.2 billion U.S. dollars in leasing-based financing.

According to DFTP official Shi Jinfeng, the deal is another milestone in Dongjiang's offshore ship leasing and the largest cross-border syndicated leasing project on the Chinese mainland to date, in terms of both financing scale and number of participants.

Specializing in the leasing industry, the DFTP handles over 90 percent of the mainland's cross-border leasing of ships and offshore engineering equipment.