Dalian banks on shipbuilding skills

Over 80,000 workers at Hengli Heavy Industry's shipyard on Changxing Island in Dalian, Northeast China's Liaoning province, are working around the clock across four slipways and four world-class dry docks.

Over 30 vessels under construction are berthed along the coastline in orderly rows, awaiting subsequent outfitting and final delivery to clients around the globe.

In the first half, Hengli Heavy Industry secured new orders for 207 vessels, including 49 bulk carriers, 56 container ships, 94 oil tankers and eight very large ammonia carriers, the first time the latter has been included in the company's order portfolio.

Located at the southern tip of the Liaodong Peninsula, Dalian boasts a century-old shipbuilding heritage and has achieved more than 90"firsts" in China's shipbuilding history. During the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30), the northeastern port city will pursue high-end, green and intelligent development, strengthen independent technological innovation and enhance the capacity to deliver premium products.

"We aim to expand the city's shipbuilding and offshore engineering industry scale to 150 billion yuan ($22.11 billion) by 2027," said Qiu Baolin, vice-mayor of Dalian, at a recent news conference.

"Then, through three to five years of sustained efforts, we will build Dalian into a world-class manufacturing base for high-tech ships and offshore engineering equipment," he added.

According to Qiu, Dalian's shipbuilding output reached 7.48 million deadweight tons in 2025, accounting for 7.8 percent of the global total, while its order backlog represented 15.2 percent of the world market.

"The city's shipbuilding output share of the global total rose to 14.1 percent in the January-May period, meaning that one out of every seven medium and large vessels delivered worldwide during the period was built in Dalian," Qiu noted."The order backlog of Dalian's four major shipbuilding conglomerates accounted for 19.1 percent of the global total, indicating strong momentum for the years ahead."

He added that Dalian is expected to deliver 142 vessels of various types in 2026, with the industry's annual output value surpassing the 100-billion-yuan mark for the first time to reach 120 billion yuan.

Dalian is now connected with more than 300 ports in over 160 countries and regions. Dalian's GDP surpassed 1 trillion yuan in 2025, making it the first city in Northeast China to achieve trillion-yuan GDP status. It laid a solid foundation for high-quality development during the 15th Five-Year Plan period.

Liu Mengtong contributed to this story.