China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has announced changes to the country’s white list shipyards with the removal of seven yards and the addition of six.
The seven shipyards removed included Dalian Liaonan Shipyard and Qingdao Shipyard, as well as five more yards that are bankrupt – Nantong Mingde Heavy Industry, Jiangsu Eastern Heavy Industries, Jiangsu Rongsheng Heavy Industries (renamed to China Huarong Energy), Zhejiang Shipbuilding, and Zhejiang Zhenghe Shipbuilding.
The ministry added six new names to the list, namely Huatai Heavy Industry, Jiangsu Dajin Heavy Industry, Tsuneishi (Zhoushan) Shipbuilding, Zhejiang Xinle Shipbuilding, Fujian Changxing Shipbuilding Industry, and Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries (ZPMC).
There are now 70 white list Chinese shipyards following the latest reshuffling, comprising of 37 state-owned, 24 privately-owned, seven jointly-owned and two sole proprietorship yards.
Beijing, having first introduced the white list policy in September 2014, said the status of being a white list yard would allow the companies to benefit from prioritised policy support and gain easier access to domestic bank credit facilities.
The policy came on the back of a prolonged challenging operating climate for Chinese shipyards due to the glut of shipbuilding capacity, low newbuilding prices and reduced orders from the oversupply shipping market.
But argue that the white list status for private enterprises has not brought about any meaningful benefit, as the policy is ultimately meant to help the state-owned enterprises.
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