Alan Lam reporting
The cruise business ambition of Xiamen, China’s southern city, has just received a boost as the local Reform and Development Commission announces a RMB1 billion investment plan to transform the current cargo terminals into a cruise homeport.
Considered to be modern China’s most habitable city, Xiamen attracts increasing number of international cruise calls every year. It has benefitted from recent record-breaking growth of cruise traffics in the Taiwan Strait. So much so that the sufficiency of its existing, relatively new passenger terminal is in doubt for the coming years.
Prior to this announcement, the city has already been upgrading its four cruise berths to accommodate vessels of up to 220,000 gross tons. To attract future homeporting, much more investment is needed.
This latest plan will be a major project, covering an area of 47.1 hectares, its boundaries will reach Haicang Bridge in the north, Yundang Lake in the south, Dongdu Wharf in the west and Dongdu Road in the east. The first phase alone will include four cruise berths, a passenger inspection building, an entertainment centre, a business centre and a cruise service centre. The development forms a key part of the so-called Xiamen Southeast International Shipping Centre scheme, which aims at turning the city into a global shipping bub and boosting its shipping logistics and tourism businesses.
The goal is to transform Xiamen into a specialised world class cruise homeport, while moving the displaced cargo business to the neighbouring ports of Fuzhou and Meizhou, the province’s other two major seaports.
Under the plan one container and three bulk berths in Dongdu District will be reassigned into one 150,000 gross ton and two 100,000 gross ton cruise berths.
To facilitate this development, the city will also concurrently undertake various major transport infrastructure upgrades.