China’s Ping Tai Rong Ocean Fishery Group has inaugurated Zhejiang Rongchang Shipyard to tap into the shipbuilding and ship repair business.
The group took over the assets of bankrupt Zhoushan Yingzhou Shipyard in a court-led auction for a price of RMB96m ($15m) in May last year and restructured the yard, renaming it Rongchang Shipyard.
The new Rongchang Shipyard, which operates three dry docks with a capacity of 30,000 dwt, 20,000 dwt and 10,000 dwt, will mainly focus on the construction and repair of smaller ships.
In the past few years a number of shipyards in Zhoushan, a major shipbuilding centre in China, have gone bankrupt including major yards Zhejiang Zhenghe Shipbuilding and Zhejiang Wuzhou Shipbuilding. In September last year, China Merchants acquired a controlling stake in another Zhoushan-based yard Zhejiang Eastern Shipyard (ZESCO), and integrated the yard into its shipbuilding subsidiary Yiu Lian Dockyard.
