China's New Naval Shipyard to Build 6 Advanced Warships a Year

China State Shipbuilding Corporation Limited (CSSC) has started constructing an ultra-modern shipyard in Shanghai that will enable the production of six advanced warships a year.

The commencement ceremony for the construction of the second phase of the Changxing Shipbuilding Base Project of CSSC was held on Changxing Island, Shanghai on Monday. The new shipyard is being built by CSSC group company, Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding (Group) Co. Ltd., which announced the project in a statement released on WeChat account.

CSSC’s Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding manufactures amphibious assault ships, amphibious landing ships and frigates for the Chinese Navy.

First phase of construction of the building covering an area of about 2.5 sqkm out of 4.32 sqkm will be completed by the end of 2023. It includes a research and development building, a joint hull workshop, a curved section assembly workshop, a module center for outfitting, a painting workshop, an indoor dockyard, an outdoor dockyard, a dock basin and a dock for outfitting, enabling the production capacity of six specialized ships a year, the statement said.

The new shipyard will use a modern assembly shipbuilding mode with advanced production concepts to ensure the high quality of products and raise production safety, the company said, noting that intelligent designing, automated production, big-data management among other technologies will be applied.

The shipbuilding company will eventually move to the new shipyard entirely.

Besides civilian ships including LNG carriers, container vessels and oil tankers, the company is also responsible for building military vessels, including landing craft, frigates, replenishment ships, offshore patrol vessels and training vessels.

CSSC has previously built Type 075 amphibious assault ships, Type 071 amphibious landing ships and Type 054A frigates for the Chinese Navy.

China already has the world’s largest Navy. In a report last month, Congressional Research Service (CRS) predicted that China would build nearly 70 new warships by 2030, which would push the total number of battle ships to 420.