[ 44 ] THE SHIP OF THE FUTURE Leading marine equipment manufacturer Foshan Daxiang Marine Equipment Co Ltd provides a one-stop-shop to the shipping and shipbuilding industry, manufacturing a wide range of products from lightweight ceiling panels and reclining seats to heavy deck equipment such as anchors and fairleads. Since its inception 17 years ago, Foshan Daxiang Marine Equipment has become a household name in marine equipment. As the construction of complex, high value-added ro-pax ferries has gathered momentum in China, so has the marine equipment cluster. Ever since its inception, Guangzhou-based Foshan Daxiang Marine Equipment has kept close ties with the Chinese shipbuilding community, including Guangzhou Shipyard International (GSI), China’s most prolific builder of ro-pax ferries. The ever-growing confidence of European ferry operators in the Chinese shipbuilding market has had a knock-on effect for shipbuilding suppliers. China is a relatively young shipbuilding nation and, as Europe has dominated the passenger shipbuilding market for decades, European ferry operators understandably initially favoured European equipment vendors for their Chinese-built ships. To a certain extent, they still do so for critical equipment, yet as Chinese companies learn extremely fast, local marine equipment manufacturers are gradually stepping in, playing an ever more important role in supplying all kinds of equipment. One such company is Foshan Daxiang Marine Equipment which has been a key supplier to P&O Pioneer and sister ship P&O Liberté. The company’s main workshop, covering a surface area of 8,000m², is equipped with state-of-the-art, tailor-made production equipment and tools, making use of artificial intelligence (AI). The capital of the Guangdong province, Guangzhou is the cultural and political centre of the Pearl River Delta, the beating heart of China’s economy and regarded as one of the most developed areas in the so-called Middle Kingdom. Founded in 2006, Foshan Daxiang Marine Equipment is confidently at a point of great success. First specialising in deck equipment such as anchors, anchor chains, chain stoppers, mooring equipment, etc., the company has meanwhile diversified its product portfolio, comprising lighter equipment such as railings, banisters, ceiling panels and furniture in the form of chairs and reclining seats. Aiming high, it now also designs and manufactures retractable glass swimming pool canopies. “ A wide range of Foshan Daxiang Marine Equipment’s products has been procured by GSI for P&O Ferries’ gamechanging Fusion-class. Besides the mooring equipment, this includes the ships’ anchors and anchor chains. By virtue of the double-ender design, the positioning of the anchors is different to that of a singleender which typically requires anchors on either side at the bow”
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