The choice of entry point for Chinese self-constructed cruise ships

By Xie Daming

O n December 18, 2017, the luxury ro-ro passenger ship “Harmony Yungang”, independently built by China, started its first voyage in Lianyungang, Jiangsu province. The “Harmony Yungang”was built by the Yellow Sea shipyard, and classi fi ed with China Classi fi cation Society.

The Chinese cruise industry has developed rapidly in the last 10 years. Compared with the hot cruise industry,China has not made corresponding progress in the construction of cruise. The fi rst voyage of the “harmony Yungang” indicates that China’s shipyard is capable of building large-tonnage passenger liner which can meet the requirements of the latest international conventions and can provide passengers with comfortable living conditions such as housing, catering and leisure. Undoubtedly,China’s shipyards and shipowners will quickly enter the cruise industry and accumulate experience and enhance their capabilities through the independent construction and operation of domestic coastal cruise ships.

It is worth noting that in order to enter the cruise industry, China needs close cooperation between the shipyards and the supporting manufacturers in the construction of their own cruise ships. Besides the traditional marine materials and equipment, the cruise matching products include a large number of daily necessities, furniture decoration, entertainment and leisure equipment. The value of a large cruise liner usually exceeds 50% of the whole ship, and the construction cost is 70% of the total cost of the project.And these materials are built on board, most of them are completed by the supporting manufacturers.

Therefore, the biggest difference between the construction of a cruise ship and a common merchant ship lies in the fact that the former is actually completed by a closely cooperative industrial circle. Taking the Europe’s three largest cruise ship building factories as an example,the local matching rate is more than 80%, and the most of cruises established by them are completed together by domestic enterprises; these supporting enterprises basically only serve one shipyard, the closeness between shipyard and supporting plant is far beyond the ordinary purchasing supply relationship.

For Chinese shipyards wishing to independently build cruise ships, apart from difficulties in design and construction technique, the lack of enough local manufacturers that have related experience in cruise construction, and lack of large-scale complex supply chain management are also an important obstacle.

Starting from simple coastal cruise is a suitable learning and experience accumulation process for Chinese local suppliers. In this process, the shipyard can work closely with selected suppliers. participate in advance in product development, assist the non-traditional marine equipment suppliers to understand marine product requirements, optimize the product design according to the characteristics of the ship, obtain certi fi cate of marine product, develop ship construction standards and so on. By the above methods, a stable and cooperative relations can be formed between the cruise plants and suppliers, then they can work together to improve the design and construction technique,construction capability, maintain long-term stability of the technology, management and construction team, and gradually formed independent Chinese cruise building capacity to participate in international competition in the market of luxury cruise.