A Chinese company is planning to build the first cruise ship in the country, tapping booming demand, Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding Co., Ltd. said on Wednesday.
It said that it would build the ship with technical support from Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri, with construction starting in 2017 and hopefully completing in 2020, the Xinhua news agency reports.
“Parent firm China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC) along with the China Investment Corporation (CIC) will set up a joint venture with £2.6 billion with America's Carnival Cruise Lines to purchase the vessel,” the report said.
However, Carnival Corporation & plc said during the recent state visit of the Chinese president to London that Carnival plc, the British holding company in the Carnival Corporation & plc group, would form a joint venture with CSSC and CIC to set up a Chinese domestic cruise brand.
However, Carnival group has a separate agreement with Fincantieri and CSSC to develop cruise ship building in China.
“As China gets into building cruise liners, it will focus on making luxury ships weighing more than 100,000 tonnes,” Chen Jun, vice manager of Shanghai Waigaoqiao, was quoted by Xinhua as saying. However, the size of cruise liners is usually measured in gross tons that is a measurement of volume, not weight.
The design of the new ship will incorporate traditional Chinese elements, with the total cost running to $1 billion Chen said.
By the time the liner is delivered in 2020, it is expected that 4.5 million Chinese will be taking cruise vacations and that the number will grow nearly four-fold over the following decade.
China will then become one of the world's largest markets for cruise travel and need five new cruise ships a year to meet demand.
The world currently needs 13 new cruise ships each year. Seven of them will replace older ships while the other six are for meeting increased demand for cruise travel, according to Chen.
"The world needs more shipbuilders as existing ones cannot take orders for cruise liners beyond those slated for delivery in 2022," he added.