The intense competition for talent has become a prominent indicator of prosperity in nearly all booming sectors. This year, this trend has reached the shipbuilding industry.
Recently, a letter issued by the Nantong Shipbuilding Industry Association before the Spring Festival stated that "some enterprises from outside the city have been conducting concentrated, unconventional, and targeted recruitment of core talent in key areas such as ship design within the Nantong region, offering compensation conditions significantly exceeding industry norms."
The letter described these actions as "malicious poaching," alleging violations of talent market order, disruption of healthy talent circulation and development ecosystems, weakening of local enterprises' competitiveness, and potential impacts on industrial chain supply security.
However, the letter did not specify the entities responsible for aggressively recruiting shipbuilding professionals.
After the incident gained attention, the association told media outlets that the letter was "issued before the Spring Festival as an internal document, and it is unclear how it was leaked." Still, it did not name any involved parties.
Despite the lack of official identification, industry views on the subject are unusually consistent: the "talent raider" is widely believed to be Hengli Heavy Industry, which achieved backdoor listing last year through Guangdong Songfa Ceramics Co.,Ltd. and is currently gaining strong momentum in the sector.
Apart from the aforementioned letter, it has been noted that since the beginning of the year, social media has frequently featured information about a "northern shipyard" offering high salaries to attract talent.
This "northern shipyard" is widely regarded as Hengli Heavy Industry, which is registered in Liaoning.
In January, a WeChat public account named "Nantong Talent Recruitment" posted information about the comprehensive launch of recruitment for Hengli Heavy Industry Group's Nantong Ship Design Center.
According to the recruitment notice, the company is hiring for positions such as chief designer/deputy chief designer and lead designer/designer, requiring relevant experience ranging from 5 to 15 years. The posting highlights "compensation standards superior to the industry and comprehensive welfare benefits."
It is worth noting that as part of its backdoor listing and accompanying financing plan, Hengli Heavy Industry also officially established an international ship research and design center in Shanghai last November. Based on previously disclosed financing scale, the company allocated 500 million yuan for the construction of the Shanghai R&D center.
Considering that this funding also supports the adjacent Nantong R&D center, ample financial resources allow Hengli Heavy Industry to continue attracting industry talent.
Since 2024, the global shipping industry has faced widespread aging of operational vessels. Demand for vessel upgrades focusing on green technology, efficiency, and intelligence has been increasing. Due to long-term industry downturn, the number of global shipyards has sharply decreased, and expanding shipyard capacity faces multiple bottlenecks related to both human resources and materials.
Extreme supply-demand imbalance has led to rising ship order prices and a rapid reversal in market prosperity.
Data from the 714th Research Institute of China State Shipbuilding Corporation Limited shows that global new ship orders in 2024 reached 168 million deadweight tons, a 31.3% year-on-year increase, hitting a record high since 2008. Year-end order backlogs stood at 288 million deadweight tons, up 14.3% from the previous year. The global new ship price index reached 189 points at the end of 2024, a 6.2% increase from 2023. By vessel type, orders for container ships, oil tankers, and LNG carriers grew by 164%, 42%, and 37%, respectively.
Based on current industry conditions, dry bulk carriers and oil tankers are expected to take over from container shipping between 2025 and 2026, becoming key order categories sustaining shipyard prosperity.
Simultaneously, due to long-term and widespread debt, losses, and closures across the global shipbuilding industry, a talent gap has emerged, making top-tier professionals increasingly scarce.
Therefore, even though the association's letter labels the actions of outside enterprises as "malicious poaching," it also acknowledges it as a market-driven phenomenon.
From a business perspective, Hengli Heavy Industry is benefiting from the rapid reversal in the global shipbuilding industry's supply-demand structure.
Data indicates that Hengli Heavy Industry secured orders for 115 ships throughout 2025, with a total value exceeding 100 billion yuan. From the beginning of 2026 to February 27, the company has publicly announced new orders for over 70 ships, already exceeding 60% of its full-year 2025 order volume.
In the capital markets, Guangdong Songfa Ceramics Co.,Ltd., which acquired Hengli Heavy Industry through restructuring, has also performed notably, rising 30% in February alone.
On January 31, Guangdong Songfa Ceramics Co.,Ltd. released its full-year performance forecast, projecting a return to profitability for January-December 2025. Net profit attributable to shareholders is estimated between 2.4 billion and 2.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3,231.43% to 3,622.85%. Expected revenue is between 20 billion and 22 billion yuan. Barring unforeseen circumstances, the company is likely to have its special treatment status removed.
Why is the focus on Nantong?
Data shows that Nantong is a significant base for ship and marine engineering equipment manufacturing in China, having developed a large-scale industrial cluster with a complete supply chain. In 2024, the output value of Nantong's shipbuilding and marine engineering industry reached 211.5 billion yuan, a record high. The city's shipbuilding scale accounts for approximately one-tenth of the national total, while its marine equipment manufacturing represents about one-quarter.
In terms of enterprises, companies such as COSCO Shipping Kawasaki and Qidong COSCO Shipping Marine Engineering under COSCO Shipping Group, as well as China Merchants Heavy Industry under China Merchants Group, have established their or their subsidiaries' R&D centers in Nantong.
Furthermore, Nantong's shipbuilding sector emphasizes both scale and technology, focusing on high-end and differentiated development. This is reflected in its prominent advantages in marine engineering equipment and special vessel sectors, and leadership in building high-tech, high-value vessels like LNG equipment. Recent world-class projects, such as the world's largest tonnage FPSO and the nation's first large-scale FLNG, were built in Nantong.
Factors such as a high degree of specialization, strong supporting industries, and a highly market-oriented environment have made Nantong a "talent hub" for the shipbuilding industry. Precisely for this reason, Nantong has naturally become a crucial battleground for shipbuilders striving for leadership.
As a "northern shipyard," considering that high-end talent has clustered in Nantong and many professionals have settled there with their families, establishing a localized R&D center in Nantong represents a strategic, transparent move for Hengli Heavy Industry.
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