中国船舶旗下外高桥造船与挪威Nor Cruises签署2艘中型邮轮建造MOU，系中国船厂首次承接外资邮轮订单意向

Shanghai Waigaoqiao, a subsidiary of China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC), has secured potential orders from a Nordic cruise operator, marking the entry of Chinese shipyards into the lucrative cruise ship construction sector amid the dominance of European firms. The memorandum of understanding (MOU) was signed by Shanghai Waigaoqiao and Nor Cruises from Norway on Wednesday at SMM Hamburg, a trade fair on shipbuilding, machinery and marine technology in Germany. The deal involved two 84,000-tonne midsized cruise vessels with an option for three more, according to Waigaoqiao. The MOU would pave the way for the first batch of such foreign contracts for Waigaoqiao, and, broadly, for China’s shipbuilding industry, as it attempts to scale the value chain and enter the technology and capital-intensive cruise ship market. While Chinese shipyards have dominated global cargo and container ship segments, with strong order books for LNG vessels, they have not yet broken into cruise ship building, a market cornered by European firms. Against this backdrop, the MOU carried significance, said one expert. “Though an MOU is not automatically an order or construction contract, it still represents a breakthrough: foreign cruise ship operators are starting to look at China … to seriously engage with builders there,” said Zeng Ji, a professor of ocean science and engineering at Shanghai Maritime University. “The MOU’s execution into a formal order will help Chinese shipbuilders prove and showcase their capabilities to undertake high-end foreign cruise ship projects and compete for more business. In that case, they may break the long-held monopoly by German and Italian shipyards,” he argued. Zeng also revealed that other foreign clients, including Singapore’s Resorts World Cruises, are also in contact with CSSC. The MOU between Waigaoqiao and Nor Cruises, though, stipulated that both ships to be built in China would adopt designs from Italian industrial giant Fincantieri, a global leader in the construction of large cruise vessels. CSSC’s partnership with Fincantieri dates back to 2016, when a joint venture was set up in Hong Kong for the introduction and transfer of advanced, luxury cruise ship design and construction technologies. This occurred as the state-owned shipbuilder embarked on a years-long programme to design, construct and launch China’s first domestically built cruise ship, which culminated in the January 2024 maiden voyage of the 135,500-tonne Adora Magic City. The second vessel created under the programme, the 142,000-tonne Adora Flora City, is scheduled for delivery on November 6. About a third of the equipment on the new ship was sourced domestically, Waigaoqiao said, adding that it nears the scale of the 170,000-tonne Spectrum of the Seas, the largest cruise vessel in Asia built by Meyer Werft in Germany, which regularly docks at Shanghai. CSSC is also pressing ahead with its push to design its own cruise ships, with a separate MOU with China Tourism Group signed in March for two ships. Its efforts to break into the cruise ship segment come as the global market experiences a new expansion cycle. According to data from Clarksons, new orders for cruise ships reached a record high of 35 vessels last year, totalling 4.31 million gross tonnes. European players have extended their delivery schedules to the mid-2030s amid strained capacity.