By
Rebecca Gibson |
Fincantieri and China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC), China’s largest shipbuilding conglomerate, have signed an agreement for a joint venture aimed at developing and supporting the growth of the Chinese cruise industry.
As part of the joint venture, the companies will design and sell cruise ships exclusively customised for the Chinese and Asian market. The vessels will be built at one of CSSC’s shipyards, the SWS facility, on the basis of a technological platform licensed to the joint venture and to the SWS shipyard by Fincantieri.
“Signing the cruise shipbuilding joint venture agreement with Fincantieri, one of the world’s largest shipbuilding groups, is another milestone event for CSSC, for the history and development of China’s cruise industry, as well as for the cooperation between China’s and Italy’s shipbuilding industry,” said Wu Qiang, president of CSSC. “Joining forces will give new vitality to the rapid growth of China’s and the Asian-pacific cruise market. We look forward to working together with Fincantieri, Carnival, CIC (China Investment Corporation) and other strategic partners to strive for building and delivering China's first domestic large cruise ship.”
Fincantieri will also provide specialised consultancy services and supply certain key components of the vessels to the joint venture and to SWS.
“This new agreement highlights once again Fincantieri’s technical and technological leading position and it places us at the centre of a project without equal in the world, supported directly by Chinese Government in the form of a very ambitious project,” said Giuseppe Bono, CEO of Fincantieri. “We are equipped to face the new international scenarios and we are selected today as a shipbuilding partner for the development of the cruise sector of a country which looks at this industry with great determination. The presence of our main customer Carnival, which will purchase the vessels covered by the agreement, is also of fundamental importance for the project’s success.”
According to the Chinese Ministry of Transport, China’s cruise market reached one million in 2015 and is expected to hit 4.5 million passengers by 2020. This will make China the world’s second largest cruise market after the US. By 2030, the country will hit eight to ten million passengers by 2030 with a double-digit growth per year. If this trend is confirmed, the Chinese market is expected to become the world’s biggest market overall.