DMAR Engineering Qingdao recently signed an investment agreement with the National High-tech Industrial Development Zone in the eastern Chinese coastal city of Qingdao, to build a deep-sea equipment industrial park there.

Zhang Dagang, PhD, one of China’s top experts in the field of deep-sea equipment, is set to lead construction of the 560-million-yuan ($91.45 million) Qingdao DMAR deep-sea equipment industrial park, which will occupy about 5.5 hectares of land, with a planned floor area of 120,000 square meters.

Upon completion, the industrial park will include a deep-sea equipment R&D and design center, a technology transfer center, a consulting services center and a high-end equipment manufacturing center.

DMAR Engineering, Inc. is a Houston-headquartered US company specialized in deep-sea equipment R&D and design.

According to the deal signed with the High-tech Zone’s regulatory commission, DMAR Engineering also plans to set up its China headquarters in the High-tech Zone.

The company is joining hands with the Ocean University of China, the Harbin Engineering University and China University of Petroleum in building a production, education and research facility for ocean engineering equipment, as well as a PhD center and a training center for high-end professionals. It also plans to carry out cooperation with American experts and companies in the ocean equipment field in the future.

By 2020, construction on a national deep-sea engineering technology center will be completed, which is likely to attract a large quantity of downstream enterprises in the deep-sea equipment industry to the High-tech Zone, with an estimated total output in excess of 600 million yuan, according to DMAR Engineering.