Highlights: 323 meters long, 37 meters wide and 135,000 tons, it is a big, very large cruise ship that left its dock this Tuesday afternoon in Shanghai. The Adora Magic City has yet to complete a series of sea trials. But this first Chinese-made tourist ship already marks an important milestone for shipbuilding in China. The Chinese market already accounts for nearly 50% of the Asian cruise market, with a growth rate of 45% in the last five years. By 2030, China is expected to have 10 million cruise passengers.

323 meters long, 37 meters wide and 135,000 tons, it is a big, very large cruise ship that left its dock this Tuesday afternoon in Shanghai, for the first time since the beginning of the...

Undocking of the Adora Magic City, the first cruise ship made in China

At 323 meters long, 37 meters wide and 135,000 tons, it is a big, very large cruise ship that left its dock this Tuesday afternoon in Shanghai, for the first time since the beginning of its construction four years ago. The Adora Magic City has yet to complete a series of sea trials. But this first Chinese-made tourist ship already marks an important milestone for shipbuilding in China.

The first Chinese-made cruise ship, "Adora Magic City," on June 6, 2023 in Shanghai, China. © Yin Liqin/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images

Text by: RFI Follow

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With our correspondent in Beijing, Stéphane Lagarde

Artifice, colorful smoke plumes and aquatic baptism, the Adora Magic City, "Mo Du" in Chinese, left its dock at 13:33 p.m. this afternoon in Shanghai to the applause of the entire state press. Enthusiastic comments and rain of figures to salute the feat.

As tall as a 24-storey building, 14 decks, 40,000 m2 of public space, the large white ship built by Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding Co. has 2,125 rooms and will accommodate 5,246 passengers. More than 93% complete when it was launched last week, the Adora Magic still has two sea trials this summer, before entering service in early 2024 for voyages to Japan and Asia.

This first is a technical feat according to its designers who do not hesitate to make the comparison with other recent local manufactures, again figures in support. "The large cruise ship has 25,000 electronic parts, which is 5 times the number of parts used for China's first C919 commercial aircraft and 13 times more than for China's latest-generation high-speed trains," Yang Xin, deputy head of Waigaoqiao's cruise projects department, told China National Television.

Previously, large cruise ships were almost exclusively manufactured in Europe [Editor's note: the last one came from the shipyards of Saint-Nazaire in France]. Now, with this first domestically made cruise ship, scientific companies and institutions in China have begun to develop our own parts," Yang Xin said. Through the manufacture of this first-ever large cruise ship, we hope to build a healthy industrial system and cultivate a cruising culture.

"Jewels of the seas"

In its quest for autonomy and sovereignty in all areas, including transport, China wants to tick all the boxes of the jewels of the seas: aircraft carriers, super container ships, large LNG carriers and therefore tourist liners with obviously a market behind.

China is now the fifth country in the world capable of building large cruise ships, after Germany, France, Italy and Finland, Zheng Weihang, executive vice president and secretary-general of the China Cruise & Yacht Industry Association, told the nationalist Global Times. This will make it possible to develop the entire industrial chain." By 2030, China is expected to have 10 million cruise passengers. The Chinese market already accounts for nearly 50% of the Asian cruise market, with a growth rate of 45% in the last five years, commentators welcome without mentioning, at any time, the pollution related to this industry, or global warming.

Undocking of the Adora Magic City, the first cruise ship made in China

Undocking of the Adora Magic City, the first cruise ship made in China

"Jewels of the seas"

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