Chinese Government and CSSC Cooperate to Develop Shipping Technologies
China’s Maritime Safety Administration of the Ministry of Transport and the state-owned China Shipping Group signed a new strategic cooperation agreement focusing on developing and accelerating the construction of smart ships. According to the agreement, they will cooperate in the fields of intelligent transportation and equipment, marine environmental protection technology, maritime policy and technical regulations research, international maritime affairs, marine safety equipment, and personnel training.
China Shipbuilding will seek to leverage the new technologies to help it rebuilt its business that was adversely affected in the first half of 2020 by the global pandemic. They reported that new ship orders dropped by 50 percent year over year in the first half of 2020.
In the field of smart shipping, the two parties said they will cooperate on smart ships, traffic management systems, and smart detection and monitoring technologies. Their goal is to jointly develop smart shipping by conducting research and technology test verifications as well as demonstrations to promote the construction of smart shipping systems.
They expect to apply the developed technologies in the construction of cruise ships, large-scale liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers, and polar navigation ships as well as Beidou satellite navigation systems, and marine farms.
They also expect the cooperation to extend to ship-to-sea environmental protection technology for pollution prevention and control for the shipping industry. They will focus on the
research and development of new energy sources as well as energy-saving and environmental protection technologies and products to reduce ships’ greenhouse gas emissions.
The China Shipbuilding Group will use the new technologies to continue to strengthen its technological innovation that it believes will permit it to increase its business.
In the first half of 2020, CSSC received orders for 73 ships amounting to 5.35 million deadweight tons. This represented better than 34 percent growth year over year in its order book, and with a 30 percent global market share, ranks CSSC first in global shipbuilding.