The latest official blueprint on the China's shipbuilding industry urges the country to crank up efforts over the next five to ten years in order to shoulder its way into the elite club of independent mainstream shipbuilders.

Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Company's plant. The latest official blueprint on China's shipbuilding industry urges the country to crank up efforts to shoulder its way into the elite club of independent mainstream shipbuilders. [Xinhua]

Key development targets enshrined in the National Medium-and Long-Term Plan of the Shipbuilding Industry include: ships to reach international levels of technological sophistication; annual output to hit 17 million deadweight tons (dwt); annual production capacity of medium- and low-speed ship diesel engines to reach 4.5 million kw and 1,100 units respectively in order to meet domestic demand; more than 60 percent of ship equipment to be produced locally.

"To reach these objectives, we need to boost our capacity for technological innovation and not just be a low-cost labor force," said Zhang Xiangmu, a senior official with the Commission of Science Technology & Industry for National Defense (CSTIND), which administers shipbuilding affairs in China.

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