China's shipbuilding industry has made brilliant achievements in 70 years

After 70 years of development, China's shipbuilding industry has established a relatively complete shipbuilding industry system on the basis of new China's poverty, realized the dream of the world's first shipbuilding country, and walked out of a road from scratch, from weak to strong, from running to leading the development of China's shipbuilding industry. At present, the overall scale and strength of China's shipbuilding industry has entered the forefront of the world, the international competitiveness of the industry has reached the world-class level, and the modern scientific and technological innovation system of the shipbuilding industry has basically taken shape. China's shipbuilding industry is currently in the best period in history, and the dream of a shipbuilding power has dawned.

(1) The scale and strength of the shipping industry has entered the forefront of the world

At the beginning of the founding of New China, the scale of ship production was very small, and most of the mainland ship factories were damaged to varying degrees, and the production was paralyzed, which could be said to be poor and empty.  By the early 1980s, China's annual shipbuilding output was only about 400,000 tons, accounting for 1% of the world's total shipbuilding output, ranking 13th in the world, and only one twentieth of the world's first shipbuilding power Japan at that time. In 1994, China's shipbuilding output jumped to the third place in the world, but the share of the world's total shipbuilding is still only about 5% (Figure 1), and Japan, South Korea accounted for more than 35% compared to the gap is very obvious. In 2006, China's ship completions reached 14.52 million deadweight tons, accounting for 19% of global ship completions (Figure 1). China's shipping enterprises received 42.51 million tons of new orders and held 68.72 million tons of orders, accounting for 24% of global orders; It has been the world's third largest shipbuilding country for 12 consecutive years, and the gap between it and the top two countries, South Korea and Japan, has narrowed significantly. In 2008, China successfully surpassed Japan in shipbuilding production, ranking second in the world in all three indicators. Among them: China's shipbuilding completed 28.81 million tons, accounting for 29.5% of the world's shipbuilding completed; New orders of 58.18 million tons, accounting for 37.7% of the world market share; More than 200 million tons of ship orders, accounting for 35.5% of the world market share. In 2010, China's three major shipbuilding indicators simultaneously ranked first in the world for the first time. Among them: China's shipbuilding completed 61.205 million DWT, accounting for 41.9% of the world's total, South Korea and Japan accounted for 31.9% and 21.5% respectively; China's new orders reached 58.459 million DWT, accounting for 48.5% of the world's total, while South Korea and Japan accounted for 38.3% and 6.1% respectively. As of the end of December 2010, China's orders held 192.915 million DWT, accounting for 40.8% of the world's total, South Korea and Japan accounted for 33.1% and 17.6% respectively. After 2011, despite the delayed impact of the international financial crisis, the absolute proportion of the three indicators of shipbuilding completion, new orders and hand-held orders in the world market share has declined year by year, but the overall proportion of the above three indicators in the world has remained at a relatively high level of more than 35% for a long time (Table 2).

 Shipbuilding completions, new orders and hand-held orders are the three important indicators that reflect the economic operation of the shipbuilding industry. After 70 years of development, China has been able to independently design and build most ship types. The three core indicators of China's shipbuilding industry have maintained an international leading position for more than 10 years, and the position of the world's shipbuilding power is very stable.

(2) The international competitiveness of the shipping industry has reached the world-class level

The export level of shipbuilding industry is an important index to reflect the international competitiveness of a country's shipbuilding industry. At present, China, together with South Korea and Japan, has been recognized as the three major shipbuilding industry countries in the world. When the People's Republic of China was founded, China's shipbuilding industry was mainly for military purposes, and civil vessels for coastal inland river traffic were mainly for domestic demand, and almost no shipbuilding industry products were exported. From the 1980s to 2000, China's shipbuilding industry was still mainly based on domestic demand, and the share of shipbuilding in the world's total shipbuilding was maintained below 5% for a long time, and the shipbuilding industry was still a typical inward oriented economy, and the proportion of ship exports was extremely low. In the early stage of reform and opening up, China established the shipbuilding industry development strategy of "introducing foreign advanced technology and exporting into the international market", and carried out technical transformation of key shipyards through the introduction of foreign advanced technology and key production equipment from a high starting point, and soon had the ability to build ships that meet the requirements of international norms and standards, and initially realized the export of shipbuilding products. During this period, China's shipbuilding industry in the relatively weak foundation of the case, through the "introduction" in technology, standards, facilities, management, trade and other aspects of the continuous integration with the international, and gradually cultivated the independent design and development capabilities, shipbuilding efficiency, level and quality significantly improved, product structure from conventional ship type gradually developed to a number of high-tech, high value-added ships. By 1994, China surpassed Germany for the first time to become the world's third largest shipbuilding country. In the 21st century, especially since China's accession to the WTO in 2002, the process of internationalization and marketization of China's shipbuilding industry has been further accelerated, and the shipbuilding industry has rapidly transformed from a domestic demand economy to an export economy, and its competitiveness in the international market has been further enhanced. The international market share has increased significantly. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the proportion of completed export ships in the national completed volume, the proportion of new export ship orders in the proportion of new orders, and the proportion of hand-held export ship orders in the proportion of hand-held orders have been at a high of more than 80% for a long time (Table 3), indicating that China's shipbuilding industry has become the most internationally competitive export-oriented economic industry. Since 2010, although affected by the international market downturn, China's completed export ship, new export ship orders and hand-held export ship orders three indicators in recent years have shown varying degrees of decline in China (Figure 2), but due to Japan and South Korea, the above indicators declined more, making China's ship export international competitiveness has become relatively stronger.

Table 3 shows the proportion of the three indicators of China's export ships in the country after 2011. It can be seen that the proportion of exports of China's shipbuilding industry is rising against the trend, indicating that the competitiveness of China's shipbuilding industry in the international market is not decreasing but increasing. The proportion of completed export ships in the national completed volume increased year by year from 81.60% in 2011 to 91.50% in 2018, showing a fluctuating trend of increasing year by year; The proportion of new export ship orders in the national new orders volume fluctuated from 76.40% in 2011 to 87.40% in 2018, showing a slow rising trend. The proportion of hand-held export ship orders in hand-held orders fell rapidly from 91.20% in 2011 to 82.7% in 2012, and then rose year by year to 89.10% in 2018, showing a stable trend in fluctuations. It is not difficult to find that the proportion of the three indicators of China's export ships in the country from 2011 to 2018 showed a steady growth trend, indicating that under the background of Sino-US trade friction and slowing international demand, the international competitiveness of China's shipbuilding industry exports still maintained a steady upward trend.

(3) It has basically formed a modern scientific and technological innovation system for the shipbuilding industry

After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, driven by the development project of the first generation of new technology ships, China basically formed a modern shipbuilding industry system with considerable scale and strength, including scientific research, design, trial production, production, testing and maintenance. But at that time, the shipbuilding industry was mainly dominated by military ships, and the development of civil shipbuilding industry was seriously lagging behind. It can only build small and medium-sized ships along the river and coast, and has neither scientific research and test facilities nor development and design capabilities (Wang Rongsheng, 2008). After the 1960s, China established a series of shipbuilding industry research institutes such as China Ship Research Institute and Shanghai Ship Research and Design Institute, and initially established a scientific research and design system with relatively complete majors and relatively complete and advanced experimental methods. But at that time, China's shipbuilding industry scientific research was still in the stage of introduction, digestion and absorption. The construction of scientific and technological innovation system of shipbuilding industry is still in its infancy.  During this period, shipbuilding research institutes, universities and other specialized research and design institutions initially completed the digestion and absorption stage, and gradually made new breakthroughs in the large-scale, serialization and mass development of mainstream ship types, and the number of export ships independently developed and with independent intellectual property rights was increasing. At the same time, it has gradually cultivated a group of high-tech R & D personnel involved in the whole industry chain of ship construction, ship supporting, ship repair and Marine engineering special equipment manufacturing. Since the beginning of the 21st century, the scientific and technological innovation system with enterprises as the main body has gradually improved, an innovation ecology with integrated development of industry, university and research has taken shape, and the capacity for scientific and technological innovation has been greatly improved. First, ship type development and product structure optimization and upgrading are progressing rapidly, and important breakthroughs have been made in the field of high-tech ships and ocean engineering. The mainstream ship types have basically realized large-scale, serialization and mass, and more than 90% of export ships are brand ship types that are independently developed and have independent intellectual property rights. The ship manufacturing industry is developing in the direction of intelligent design, intelligent products, refined management and information integration. Second, the integration of industry, university and research in the shipbuilding industry has made new progress, and the industry development innovation ecology has been initially established. For example, China Far-reaching Ocean Engineering Equipment Technology Industry Alliance, China Marine Materials Technology Innovation Alliance and Ship offshore industry, new materials industry Alliance have been established in recent years. By the end of 2016, the total number of shipbuilding industry national enterprise technology centers has reached 27, and 5 units such as Shanghai Shipbuilding Technology Research Institute have become technical support units of national engineering laboratories.

Third, independent research and development capabilities and Marine equipment supporting capabilities are improving year by year. The three mainstream ship types have been comprehensively upgraded, strategic and forward-looking product research and development has been steadily promoted, breakthroughs have been made in the research and development of a number of independent brand power equipment, conventional product optimization and innovation capabilities have been increasingly enhanced, high-tech and high value-added product development capabilities have been continuously improved, the localization rate of Marine equipment manufacturing has been further improved, and the core competitiveness of the shipbuilding industry has gradually increased.

(4) A modern high-level shipbuilding industry system has been initially established

As early as the 1960s, China has basically formed a relatively complete shipbuilding industry system for military and civilian ships, shipbuilding and repair, and the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain of mechanical and electrical, steel, chemical, shipping, Marine resources exploration and mining industries have also been preliminarily established. After the reform and opening up, China's shipbuilding industry system has been further optimized, and the main shipbuilding enterprises have gradually established a modern shipbuilding model, basically achieved large-scale and standardized shipbuilding, and the shipbuilding efficiency has been greatly improved. In the early 1980s, in order to meet the needs of the construction of export ships, China began to introduce and transform international standards and foreign advanced standards, and initially formed a ship standard system. After entering the new century, the construction of shipbuilding industry standard system has been continuously improved, and shipbuilding standardization has entered a stage of rapid development and scale expansion. China has independently formulated a large number of standards such as "Shipbuilding Industry Standard System" (2012 edition), which provides strong support for the design and construction of mainstream ship types. At present, China's backbone shipbuilding enterprises have gradually established and improved a complete production management system from production planning to production technology, to production planning and production organization, and the construction cycle and management indicators of backbone shipyards on typical ship types have approached the world's advanced level, and the gap between the shipbuilding efficiency of major shipyards and Japan and South Korea has been greatly shortened. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China's shipbuilding industry has entered a stage of deepening structural adjustment, accelerating transformation and upgrading, and achieving high-quality development. A number of major standards represented by the "China Shipbuilding Quality Standard", "Green Ship Code" and "Smart Ship Code" have been promulgated and implemented, and access standards for China's ship design, construction and repair industries have been basically established. The conversion rate of international standard has reached about 70%. After 70 years of development, the industrial chain of China's shipbuilding industry has been further improved, the shipbuilding industry standard system has been gradually established, and the industrial standard system and specification system involving the coordinated development and mutual support of shipbuilding manufacturing, ship repair, ship supporting and Marine engineering equipment industries have become increasingly mature, and a modern high-level new shipbuilding industry system has taken shape. The core competitiveness of shipping enterprises has been further enhanced.