China's State Council has issued a three-year plan to upgrade and restructure its shipbuilding industry. China has become one of the most influential shipbuilding countries in the world.

But China's shipbuilding industry is now facing unprecedented challenges, due to the plunge in demand worldwide. The plan states that many important measures need to be taken as part of the industry's three years development.

In the coming three years, the restructuring and upgrading of China's shipbuilding industry will focus on accelerating innovation, strictly controlling new capacity, promoting high-end products and stabilizing the industry's international market share with greater funding support.

"The new three-year plan has three measures. One is to expand domestic demand and promote export. One is to drive technology innovation. Last is to accelerate the layout and the structure adjustment of the shipbuilding capacity." Cao Yousheng, Deputy Director of Tech. Research and Eco. Dev. of CSSC said.

To expand domestic demand, the plan is to encourage the scrapping of older ships and more military-civilian cooperation in vessel design and development.

To maintain a more stabilized international environment, the plan encourages financial institutions to increase credit support for foreign buyers of vessels and equipment, and study securitization of shipbuilders' loans.

Besides restricting new shipbuilding capacity, the government is encouraging mergers and acquisitions and the pooling of resources in the industry.

The plan also encourages the development of offshore engineering equipment such as drilling platforms and large LNG ships.

"The new three-year plan is focusing on long term sustainable development. It aims at changing from big to strong. It no longer eye at maintain or expand the development scale of the industry." Cao Yousheng said.

The statement says that local authorities and agencies should formulate supporting policies and ensure the timely completion of targets. But at this point there are no specific goals provided.