The two parties have agreed to establish long-term strategic collaboration on shipbuilding, ship engine manufacturing, vessel repair and conversion.

MSC already has an orderbook of 132 container ships with a total capacity of 1.82 million teu, some 30% of its existing fleet. Its newbuilding orders alone would make it the world eighth largest container line by some margin.

Since the full operations started of Hengli Heavy Industry, the company has been upgrading its production quality and efficiency, which is capable of building large-size containership, VLCC, VLOC, gas carrier and bulk carrier

Its second phase production base started construction in the middle of August, further enlarging the production capacity of Hengli and it is also mulling an IPO on the Hong Stock Exchange.