Seizing Construction Opportunity of the Greater Bay Area, Guangdong Shipbuilding and Marine Equipment Industries Riding on Momentum

Chen Jianan and Kuang Zhanting

In recent years, China has accelerating advancing into “deep blue”. A new bright spot of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area's development plan is to cultivate a new growth point of marine economy, and cultivating a modern marine industry is an important starting point for the development of marine economy.

It is reported that this year,Guangdong will issue a three-year action plan for the six major marine industries,focusing on supporting the development of six major industries including high-end offshore engineering equipment, offshore wind power and marine organism, and continue to promote the construction of bases such as the Yangjiang Industrial Base for Offshore Wind Power. At the same time, the province will vigorously promote the development of marine economy, accelerate the optimization and upgrading of marine traditional industries;support the integration of coastal port groups, the construction of multimodal transport hubs, promote accelerated development of coastal tourism and island tourism; actively organize the 2019 China Maritime Expo and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Marine Cooperation Development Forum, jointly build a platform for Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao cooperation and development,and promote Guangdong's marine economy to fully participate in foreign economic exchanges and cooperation.Relying on the “one expo and one forum”, Guangdong will effectively strengthen ties with Hong Kong, Macao and major economies abroad and attract advanced industries, such as marine engineering equipment, marine energy,marine science and technology, marine environmental protection, port logistics,and biomedicine and modern service trade in developed countries and regions for investment, and fully serve Guangdong building a strong maritime province and a new system of open economy. In addition, Guangdong will strengthen the protection and restoration of the coastal zone and island ecological environment; fully support the development of clean energy, promote the industrialization of natural gas hydrate and the construction of key energy projects such as offshore wind power.

We learn that with regard to marine equipment, Guangdong Province will build a high-end intelligent marine engineering equipment mega-industry, with major projects as traction, focus on integrated innovation, break through common key technologies, improve design and R&D capabilities, actively establish the National Innovation Center of Intelligent Offshore Engineering Manufacturing Industry. In offshore wind power, Guangdong Province will implement the priority development strategy of offshore energy and actively participate in offshore wind power project development. According to the plan, by the end of 2020, Guangdong Province will begin construction of offshore wind power with more than 12 million kilowatts of installed capacity,of which more than 2 million kilowatts will be completed and put into production, and by the end of 2030,30 million kW installed capacity will be completed and put into operation,driving more than one trillion yuan investment.

Natural gas hydrate is the strategic commanding point of global energy development in the future.Guangdong Province pledges to promote the pilot production of natural gas hydrate by 2023, achieve industrial development, initially build an annual production capacity of about 1 billion cubic meters 2030, which will drive output value of related industries,such as drilling, production, storage and transport and support services exceeding 100 billion yuan.

Advanced manufacturing industry is the pillar of modern industrial system and is the key to achieve high-quality development.

Taking “building a modern industrial system with international competitiveness” as an important work in promoting the construction of the Greater Bay Area, The Plan Outline calls for deepening the supply-side structural reform,focusing on nurturing development of new industries, new business formats and new models, supporting the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, speeding up the development of advanced manufacturing and modern services, aiming at international advanced standards to improve industrial development, promoting complementary industrial advantages,working closely together, developing jointly, and fostering a number of world-class industrial clusters.

In order to support the development of real economy,Guangdong Province will fully implement the “Ten Articles of the Real Economy”and other policies this year and make an effort in supporting enterprises in financing, solving the difficulties of land use, and protecting knowledge.

Industry experts pointed out that speeding up the development of advanced manufacturing in the Greater Bay Area will focus on strengthening the core competitiveness of the manufacturing industry, optimizing the layout of the manufacturing industry,and speeding up the restructuring of the manufacturing industry. After the transformation and upgrading in recent years, Guangzhou has basically set up a complete shipbuilding industry system. The shipbuilding and repair industry cluster represented by Nansha Longxue Shipbuilding Base has obvious advantages and has quite strong international competitiveness. At the same time, however, the shipbuilding industry in Guangdong Province still has prominent contradictions and problems, such as structural overcapacity, imbalance between supply and demand structure, and other prominent contradictions and problems.The internal development gap remains large, synergy and inclusiveness need to be strengthened, and there is also homogeneous competition in some areas.

According to the deployment of the Plan Outline, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area should vigorously promote the transformation,upgrading and optimal development of the manufacturing industry, strengthen the industrial division of labor and cooperation, and build an advanced manufacturing base with international competitiveness. They should vigorously develop intelligent manufacturing equipment and products, and speed up the green transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry.

In Longxue shipbuilding base,intelligent manufacturing is accelerating.CSSC Guangzhou Shipbuilding International Co., Ltd. takes the intelligent manufacturing as the hand grip, relies on the information technology to promote the high-quality development and on the basis of steadily promoting the construction of three digital platforms --design, construction and management, and uses new technologies such as industrial IOT, wireless network, enterprise cloud,intelligent manufacturing to build the MES platform of digital workshop. The intelligent manufacturing workshop of the company has been put into use, and the high-automatic production line not only speeds up and increases efficiency of the manufacture of the steel shell of the deepmedium-channel immersed tube tunnel,but also is the good beginning of advancing intelligent manufacturing in a full-scale way. In the intelligence of the product, the company has kept up with the intelligent pace of the ship, adopted the classification symbol of i-ship (E) intelligent energy efficiency, and will be subsequently carry out further research on intelligent engine room, intelligent navigation and intelligent integration.

The Plan Outline clearly states to promote effective implementation of cruise free travel policy in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, which is conducive to promote Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao cruise free travel policy high-end tourism projects, and explore the construction of an international free port for cruise tourism in suitable regions; support Macao to explore and develop international cruise tourism with neighbouring cities, cooperate in the development of cross-border tourism products and develop the international cruise market, and support cities in the Pearl River Delta to build national tourism demonstration zones all over the country.

＂Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area has a good strategic prospect and will bring new opportunities to the cruise industry in Guangdong Province.＂ Wu Tian, chairman of the Guangdong Cruise Industry Association,said that in recent years, there has been good news about cruise free travel in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao,with the implementation of the strategic planning of the Pearl River Delta Bellmouth Coastal Economic Zone and the deep sea economy, and development of projects including the Shenzhen Qianhai Modern Service Area, Dongguan Binhai New Area, Nansha Free Trade Area and Nansha New Cruise Home-Port, the gradually opened Pearl River Delta cruise free travel will help the development of cruise industry in Guangdong Province.

In order to promote the reform and innovation of the customs clearance management mode at the port of the Greater Bay Area of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, and to speed up the policy of promoting the free travel of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao cruises,the Guangdong Government issued a notice about Guangdong province optimizing the port business environment for the promotion of cross-border trade facilitation,increasing the free travel range for cruisers in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao to 6 cities. An insider analyzed that this is also a big plus for the cruise industry in the Greater Bay Area.