China State Shipbuilding Corp (CSSC), the bigger of the country's two major ship makers, said its profit almost tripled last year as it boosted output and improved production efficiency.

 

Net income surpassed 14 billion yuan last year, skyrocketing from 5.2 billion yuan in 2006, the company said yesterday in Beijing.

 

It finished 6.55 million deadweight tons of vessels in the past year and received a record order of more than 23 million dwt of ships worldwide, which put its overall amount for orders yet to deliver beyond 50 million dwt.

 

By occupying the global shipbuilding market of 7.5 percent, 10 percent and another 10 percent in ship construction, new orders and total orders respectively, CSSC shrank the gap between itself and the world's largest shipbuilder Hyundai Heavy Industries Co of South Korea, maintaining the second place for two consecutive years.

 

CSSC also plans to sell 65 percent of its shareholding in Shanghai Jiangnan-Changxing Shipbuilding Co Ltd to its wholly owned subsidiary Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding Co Ltd, according to its statement to the Shanghai Stock Exchange yesterday.

 

Invested by CSSC jointly with Baosteel Group, Shanghai Jiangnan-Changxing Shipbuilding's production base in Changxing island in Shanghai will be inaugurated on June 3, CSSC said yesterday.

 

It may boost CSSC's annual production capacity to 7 million dwt.

 

"In the next three years, our output will maintain a high annual growth rate of 40 percent and in 2010, it will exceed 18 million dwt," said Chen Xiaojin, chairman and general manager of CSSC. "We aim to be the biggest shipbuilder by 2015 and make China the top nation in shipbuilding."

 

According to Chen, CSSC will also celebrate the launch of China's first independent tanker for LNG this March, a milestone in China's shipbuilding history.

 

Tankers for LNG, or liquefied natural gas, are among the largest and most complex cargo ships in the world.

 

"We will continue to put 5 percent of our turnover into research and development this year to strengthen our independent innovation, which is the key to long-term development," said Xu Miao, deputy director of the technology department of CSSC.

 

Xu said CSSC is also trying to design and develop luxury cruise liners, which are produced only by European shipbuilders at present.

 

(China Daily January 9, 2008)