Rongcheng in Shandong province recently held a promotional event to boost the development of its marine equipment industry, which resulted in the signing of eight new projects.

A shipbuilding and repair yard in Rongcheng, Shandong province [Photo/Dazhong News]

Rongcheng, located at the eastern end of the Shandong Peninsula, is surrounded by the sea on three sides. Its coastline is 500 kilometers long, and has 33 ports of different sizes. The city has a complete shipbuilding industry chain, with an annual capacity of 1 million DWT, and more than 1,000 ships are repaired annually.

The city is home to 24 shipbuilding enterprises and repair yards above designated size. Its output of passenger rolling ships and heavy lift ships accounts for 70 percent and 80 percent of the national market share, respectively.

There are more than 40 supporting shipping enterprises, and more than 60 percent of marine spare parts can be supplied by local enterprises.

In 2021, the total output value of Rongcheng's marine equipment industry reached 5.66 billion yuan ($842.8 million).

Rongcheng has taken a number of steps to encourage the growth of ship repair, marine equipment, and other related industries in order to advance the production of high-tech and high-value-added ships.

Efforts have been made to develop the ship maintenance industry. The city aims to build the largest international ship maintenance base in North China, and create a State-level ship maintenance service export base.

It will speed up the research and development of deep-sea aquaculture vessels and deep-sea cages to transform the traditional aquaculture industry with high-end equipment.

It will also endeavor to establish a leading marine equipment manufacturing base in China by adding manufacturing firms of offshore wind power equipment, deep-sea oil and gas equipment, and deep-sea range equipment.