On 12th April, CMI hosted the first GBA forum for ocean science and technology innovation with “Technology Innovation Drives Ocean Development” as its theme in Shekou, Shenzhen. Li Jianhong, Chairman of CMG, met with the main guests. Wang Cuijun, Deputy General Manager of CMG, attended the forum and delivered a speech. Leaders and experts from Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Natural Resources and other relevant departments, China Association of the National Shipbuilding Industry and other industry associations, and relevant units in Shenzhen all attended the forum.

This is the first time that CMI has hosted such a big-scale industry conference. Ding Kuiling, academician of Chinese?Academy of Sciences, Ding Rongjun and Jian Xigao, academicians of Chinese Academy of Engineering, and Shin JongGue, academician of the National Academy of Engineering of Korea, attended the forum.?Over 150 renowned experts from Shanghai JiaoTong University, Wuhan University of Technology and other famous universities in China, the world’s six major classification societies, CRRC Corp. Ltd. , CNOOC Group, and CMIC Ocean En-Tech Holding Co. ,Ltd. , attended this forum. During this forum, CMI officially launched three technological innovation platforms namely Institute of CMI Offshore Facility, Institute of CMI Cruises and Institute of CMI Deep-sea Facility. CMI also signed MOUs on the research and manufacture of maritime facilities, cruise and deep-sea facilities with Shanghai JiaoTong University, Wuhan University of Technology and Institute of Deep-sea Science and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences respectively.

While meeting with the main guests, Li Jianhong pointed out that CMG has attached great importance to the industrial equipment manufacturing and will continue to take it as an important business. He thanked all the academicians, relevant ministries and industry leaders for their support to CMG, shared the successful experience of CMG in the aspect of business model and talent incentive mechanism over the past 41 years since the reform and opening-up, and emphasized the importance of “technology led, innovation driven” in the development strategy of CMG. Li Jianhong stated that CMG has made great breakthroughs in the field of indurstrial equipment manufacturing such as advanced offshore facilities, luxury cruises and etc. CMG will continue to give CMI full support to help make it stronger and better, and will establish new business groups of facility manufacturing based on CMI’s current business.

Wang Cuijun pointed out in his speech that CMI, based on the market demand and its own development requirements, has proposed a goal of creating a world class leading manufacturer and service provider of offshore facilities and cruise ships by integrating internal and external resources, and clearly made the vision of “strengthen ourselves and towards a deep blue sea”. CMI has made breakthroughs in equipments such as polar cruises, medium and deep water mooring platforms, semi-submersible platforms, intelligent marine aquaculture cages, wave power generation equipment and wind turbine installation vessels and in core supporting facilities such as flexible risers. Recently, CMI has taken the lead in manufacturing polar cruises in China and signed the ship construction contract of Hull 1+3 with SBM Offshore, the world’s largest FPSO operator. Moreover, CMI has made some achievements on both industrial transformation and product upgrades. However, to realize the great vision of “towards a deep blue sea”, CMI still has a long way to go. It is necessary for CMI to constantly strengthen product research and technology upgrades, deepen the university-industry cooperation with industry peers in an all-round way, and jointly promote the high-quality development of China’s offshore facility manufacturing industry.

Wang Ruihua, deputy director of the Equipment Industry Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, indicated in her speech that the theme of this conference fits well with the actual needs of the moment. She emphasized that the shipbuilding industry shouldn’t take capacity expansion as driving force to achieve quantity growth, but should take technological innovation as driving force to promote industry transformation and achieve high-quality development. Wang Ruihua praised that in recent years, CMI has integrated lots of domestic high-quality resources, gathered a group of outstanding talents from home and abroad, made new breakthroughs in many new facilities, new products and new businesses, and set up an example for the shipbuilding industry.

Guo Dacheng, president of China Association of the National Shipbuilding Industry, pointed out that located in Shenzhen, the core area of Greater Bay Area, CMI has seized the historical opportunity, established three major technological innovation platforms and held the first technology innovation forum. All of these would play a positive role in promoting the construction of Greater Bay Area and the sound development of offshore facility and high-tech vessels. He also said that China Association of the National Shipbuilding Industry will actively play its role as service platform, think tank platform, international exchange and cooperation platform in the industry and provide better service for the development of institute.

During the academic reporting period, Jian Xigao, academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering, Shin JongGue, academician of the National Academy of Engineering of Korea, and experts in the industry gave talks on new materials and new technology of shipbuilding, development trend of offshore oil and gas , deep-sea technology, cruise manufacturing technology, intelligent manufacturing, digital and intelligent ship. They discussed the future development direction of offshore facility and made suggestions for the development of China’s offshore facility and marine materials. They also proposed to enhance the capacity of independent innovation, so as to provide strong scientific and technological support for the development of China’s offshore facility.

Simple Hu, General Manager of CMI, pointed out in his concluding speech that nowadays Chinese government has put forward new requirements for offshore facility manufacturing. Shipbuilding industry and technology revolution have entered into a new stage, and CMI has started a new journey. It is urgent for CMI to focus on the long-term development and look for new driving forces. Technological innovation is the most important driving force and is also the key to achieving sustainable development and creating endogenous power in the future. The improvement of technological innovation ability depends on the guidance of industry peers and the support of our partners. This forum has built a good bridge and cooperation platform for CMI and the industry peers. And we will strive to make the forum an exclusive brand of CMI’s Technology Forum. In the future, CMI will continue to use this platform to strengthen exchanges and cooperation with industry peers in the field of technological innovation, and work together with all parties to realize the great vision of “towards a deep blue sea”!

The forum had been shared through picture and video broadcast, and the number of online viewers had exceeded 30,000.