By Liu Lu and Yan Chunhua

Recently, guests from 11 countries and regions including Finland, Netherlands, France, Denmark, Austria, and Italy gathered in Nantong, to understand in-depth the development conditions of Nantong’s shipbuilding and marine engineering industry, hoping to carry out in-depth cooperation with Nantong.

Finland is located in Northern Europe and has a long coastline and many lakes. Since ancient times, it has been closely associated with the ocean and water transportation. The event attracted more than 10 enterprises including Visual Components, T-Drill, GS-Hydro, KONE Elevator, Helkama Cable, Valmet, Marioff, Norsepower, Switch, and Vaisala to participate.

‘Nantong has strong strength in shipbuilding and marine engineering. The prosperous industrial status is impressive. Large shipbuilding companies such as COSCO and China Merchants Group all have bases in Nantong. The Finnish companies which participated this time hope that they can have deeper cooperation with Nantong shipbuilding and marine engineering companies.’ Marco Ruotsalainen, Chairman of Finnish Marine Industries Federation in China, said.

‘China and Denmark have extensive cooperation in green cooperation field.’ Mikael Hemniti Winther, Consul General of Denmark in Shanghai, introduced that the marine industry plays a very important role in the Danish economic development, contributing about 10% of the GDP of Denmark. The export accounts for 17%. ‘Shipbuilding and marine engineering industry is the industrial name card of Nantong. A few Danish companies have ordered products such as offshore wind turbine installation vessels and LNG ships in Nantong.’ He hoped that through this event, a platform for exchange could be built, to promote more cooperation between Danish companies and Nantong companies for mutual benefits.