One sector where China has promoted import substitution is shipbuilding, where it has leveraged the purchase of its first contracts of liquefied natural gas to ensure the tankers carrying the resource from foreign fields are built in China.
Guangzhou Shipyard, which gained 60 per cent of revenues from exports in 2005 and has an order book lasting into 2009, says one of its attractions is flexibility in managing orders.
“We are more customer-oriented than Korean and Japanese shipyards,” a spokesman said yesterday. “We can design a variety of models to meet the specific requirement of our clients.”