The global shipbuilding industry's resurgence is creating a definitive upward trend for China's maritime manufacturing sector.
In the first half of the year, China's total goods trade imports and exports exceeded 25 trillion yuan for the first time, marking a year-on-year increase of 16.9%. A prime example is the export of ships and marine engineering equipment, which saw its value reach 214.9 billion yuan, growing by 19.9%.
As one of the three major shipbuilding hubs in Jiangsu province, Yangzhou stands as a prime example during this growth cycle. In the first half, the Yangzhou port exported 61 newly built ships, a 38.6% year-on-year increase, setting a new historical high for the period and solidifying its position in the nation's top tier.
However, this favorable environment does not come without underlying concerns. For a long time, a lack of independent supporting capacity for high-tech, high-value-added core components like marine engines has been a significant constraint on the development of Yangzhou's, and indeed Jiangsu's, ship and marine engineering industry.
Recently, a key project's framework agreement signing was witnessed by Yangzhou's municipal party secretary, Wang Jinjian, along with senior executives from COSCO Shipping Group and COSCO Shipping Heavy Industry. This project involves the construction of marine engines.
Reports indicate the project and its supporting facilities involve an investment of approximately 5 billion yuan. While this figure may not be staggering in an industry accustomed to multi-billion-yuan investments, its significance lies in its potential to fill the gap in Yangzhou's core marine engine supply chain, adding a crucial piece to the local industrial puzzle.
Looking further, Yangzhou set a goal three years ago to achieve a GDP exceeding one trillion yuan during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period. Currently, it faces competition from cities like Yancheng. By leveraging this global industrial opportunity and striving to build a 100-billion-yuan ship and marine engineering equipment cluster, can Yangzhou accelerate its sprint towards this economic milestone?
Assessing the Current Landscape
Preliminary statistics from global shipping research firm Clarksons show that from January to June 2026, China's shipbuilding industry continued to lead the world in three key indicators: completions, new orders, and order backlogs, collectively holding dominant global market shares.
China has maintained its leading position in global market share for these three shipbuilding indicators for 16 consecutive years. Within China's shipbuilding map, the coastal economic powerhouse of Jiangsu province plays a pivotal role.
As the nation's top province for ship and marine engineering, Jiangsu leads the country in both the added value of marine ship and equipment manufacturing and the scale of ship exports. Data shows Jiangsu accounts for over 40% of China's three major shipbuilding indicators, with eight of its shipyards ranking among the global top 30 by order backlog.
Within Jiangsu's industrial layout, Yangzhou is a significant player. In 2025, Yangzhou's high-tech ship and marine equipment industrial chain achieved an output value of 51.402 billion yuan, up 18.13% year-on-year. Its ship completions reached 7.71 million deadweight tons, accounting for 14.36% of the national total, making it number one in Jiangsu by the number of new ships built.
The strong growth continues. From January to April this year, Yangzhou completed 64 ships totaling 2.8837 million deadweight tons, a year-on-year surge of 51.98%. Export value reached 9.03 billion yuan, up 35.42%, while new orders more than doubled.
Most shipyards in the region have order books filled through 2028-2030. This robust market performance highlights the region's industrial competitiveness. However, beneath the success, there is an urgent need to address key weaknesses.
Local officials have repeatedly pointed out shortcomings such as a thin industrial chain and low product added value, noting a significant gap from the requirements for building a world-class advanced manufacturing cluster. The marine engine is a critical weak link.
As the ship's "heart," the main engine represents a high-value component, accounting for 10-15% of a vessel's total cost. Due to high technical barriers, this segment has long been monopolized by a few international giants, constraining the supply chain autonomy and supporting capabilities of major shipbuilding centers like Yangzhou.
A Strategic Move to Address Weaknesses
The recent agreement signing directly targets this gap. It was a highlight of Yangzhou's 2026 High-tech Ship and Marine Equipment Industry Investment Promotion Conference, described by local media as a "key step" in upgrading the industry and developing its cluster.
COSCO Shipping Heavy Industry, a major heavy industrial enterprise under COSCO Shipping Group with headquarters in Shanghai, operates nine large and medium-sized shipyards capable of building over 8 million deadweight tons of commercial ships annually.
According to officials, the project, once operational, is expected to produce 80 to 120 methanol dual-fuel and clean energy marine engines per year, filling the local gap in core marine engine supply.
While specific details are limited, partnering with an industry leader to tackle this long-standing bottleneck demonstrates the local urgency for a breakthrough. Relying on external procurement for such a high-tech, high-value component not only increases costs but also compromises supply chain stability and autonomy.
As one local official bluntly stated, past practices leaned towards a "take-it-as-is" approach, where the power system, control systems, and navigation systems were not locally produced, resulting in a mere "hull economy."
Observers note that shipbuilding is a heavily配套-dependent industry. For instance, within the Nantong-Taizhou-Yangzhou cluster, Nantong's ship and marine engineering output value has surpassed 220 billion yuan. The gap between Yangzhou and this "leading brother" is largely reflected in the completeness of the industrial chain配套.
Yangzhou has been striving to move beyond the "hull economy." A 2024 implementation opinion for high-quality development of the industry explicitly called for "focusing on the shortcomings and gaps in the industrial chain," strengthening supporting links like ship electronics and new energy power systems, and growing the supporting industry.
It set a target to reach a 50-billion-yuan output value by 2026, with high-tech ships capturing 40% of the provincial market share and the supporting industry's proportion rising to 30%. Notably, the 50-billion-yuan output target was achieved in 2025, one year ahead of schedule.
Aspirations for Leadership and Economic Transformation
From this new starting point, Yangzhou is now targeting an even higher goal: building a 100-billion-yuan ship and marine engineering equipment cluster during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, contributing to its push to become a "city with a trillion-yuan GDP."
During the "14th Five-Year Plan," Yangzhou's economy crossed the 700-billion-yuan and 800-billion-yuan thresholds. In 2025, its GDP reached 805.675 billion yuan, leaving a gap of less than 200 billion yuan to the trillion-yuan mark.
Within the fiercely competitive "quasi-trillion" city group, Yangzhou faces pressure. Among the 11 Chinese cities with GDP over 800 billion yuan at the end of 2025, Yangzhou ranks 9th nationally and 7th within Jiangsu province. It trails leaders like Xuzhou and Shaoxing, while being closely pursued by its provincial neighbor Yancheng, which trailed by only 1.145 billion yuan in 2025.
Adding to the challenge, Yangzhou's fixed asset investment declined by 26.1% in 2025. A municipal meeting late last year, while reaffirming the "trillion-yuan city" goal, also pointed out development shortcomings like significant economic growth pressure and a slow pace of industrial transformation.
Yangzhou's current focus is its "613" industrial system, comprising six leading industrial clusters including high-end equipment, new energy, and new materials, and 13 emerging industrial chains including aviation, industrial machine tools, and robotics. This system is seen as the "main engine" for high-quality entry into the GDP "trillion-yuan club."
The ship and marine engineering sector holds substantial weight within this system—it is not only part of the leading high-end equipment cluster but also designated as one of the 13 key industrial chains.
More importantly, the rapid growth of the shipbuilding industry has the potential to drive the rise of a broader range of industries. Ship manufacturing involves dozens of sectors like steel, machinery, electronics, and chemicals, with a single LNG vessel involving over 100 systems and more than 5.5 million components, demonstrating极强的产业带动力.
Data shows that this year, the output value of Yangzhou's high-tech ship and marine equipment industrial chain has surged ahead, significantly outpacing the other 12 chains. Its growth contributed substantially to the increase in scale以上 industrial output value in the first quarter, and it maintained the top growth position among all 13 chains from January to May.
The opportunity is here. The question remains whether Yangzhou, ambitious and unwilling to settle for the middle ground, can ride this wave to new heights.
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