A few days ago, at the joint invitation of the Municipal Commission of Economics and Letters and the City Shipbuilding Industry Design Base, Zhao Gengxian, a researcher of the China Shipbuilding and Ocean Engineering Design Institute, “wrote guest” Zhoushan, and started dialogue with representatives of the industry regarding “ship development and independent innovation”.

Optimizing the ship type to form its own brand Zhao Gengxian is a domestic ship design master, a leader in large (very large) ship design, pioneer in China's FPSO, and has previously participated in the development of the largest oil tanker and VLCC in Suez. In recent years, it has been CNOOC, PetroChina, China Shipping Industry, and domestic shipbuilding. Consultation on major projects in society, metallurgy, and bridges.

He said that in the next decade, it will be a period of optimization and independent innovation for the development of China's shipbuilding model, and it will also be a crucial period for the shipbuilding industry to become bigger and stronger. “The optimal development of our ship type can not always rely on low-cost labor cost production, and we must form our own brand.” Zhao Gengxian said that first of all, we should learn advanced foreign concepts and mature experiences, and work hard on all aspects of “green ships”. It is the key to winning in the future. Second, to break the geographical differences at home and abroad, the boundaries between state-owned enterprises and private enterprises are combined to form vertical forces and build up strength. For example, the joint development of marine engineering between Brazil and South Korea, and the cooperation between Russia's shipping industry and Japan and South Korea on LNG are examples worth studying.

When talking about the development direction of the ship type in the next ten years, Zhao Gengxian believes that it should focus on the development of green ships, novel Panamax ships, wide-body ships with no (small) ballast water, multi-functional ships, multi-functional marine engineering products, and novelties. Marine engineering installations, etc.

How to deal with the unfavorable factors in the shipbuilding industry?

In recent years, the price of steel for ships has remained high, and the profits of shipyards have been meagre. The appreciation of the renminbi has also made shipbuilding orders “hot potato”.

The shortage of professionals, lack of reserve forces, core technology reliance on foreign patents, insufficient capacity for domestic equipment, etc. These “short legs” have severely constrained the shipbuilding industry from becoming bigger and stronger.

In view of the aforementioned unfavorable factors in the domestic shipbuilding industry, Zhao Gengxian believes that government support for ship development should be increased, macro-control should be strengthened, and research on ship-type optimization should be carried out in an organized and orderly manner; establishment of relatively stable and properly staffed personnel R & D team; strengthen management, improve the incentive mechanism.

Corporate executives should also establish a technology exchange platform to cultivate innovative talents. Focusing on the development of “green ships” and adopting the awareness of green environmental protection, the research on reducing CO2 emissions, reducing SO2 and NOx emissions, shipboard waste management, ballast water treatment, anti-pollution coating, and utilization of shipbreaking materials has been studied. The developed hull forms have the least impact on environmental pollution during construction, shipping and dismantling, and can be recycled for recycling.

Development of deep-sea fishing equipment or transformation of shipbuilding enterprises into a “new blue ocean”

“Originally there are some fishing boat manufacturing and repair factories in Zhoushan, which is actually a very good condition.” Zhao Gengxian said that shipbuilding enterprises should jump out of the fixed thinking mode of ship-building countries and shipbuilding powers, and see the future development goals of the ocean and ocean powers.

In 2012, the total output value of the marine industry in the country has exceeded 5 trillion yuan, accounting for 9.6% of the total GDP. Among them, shipbuilding was 133.1 billion yuan, a growth rate of -1.1%; marine fishery was 365.2 billion yuan, an increase of 6.4%; and sea oil was 157 billion yuan, an increase of -8.7%. The development potential of marine fisheries is immeasurable. “If Zhoushan’s shipping companies can pay attention to the development of offshore deep-sea fishing equipment, it will lead to the development of a large number of enterprises,” said Zhao Gengxian.