China's oldest shipbuilder, the Jiangnan Shipyard Corp., completed the move to a new home on Tuesday to make room for World Expo 2010.

The shipbuilder, a subsidiary of China State Shipbuilding Corp. (CSSC), moved from its Huangpu River site in Shanghai to Changxing Island on the mouth of the Yangtze River, which is set to become the world's largest shipyard.

Work on the 16-billion-yuan (US$2.3 billion) new shipyard started in 2005.

It's the first phase of the Changxing base and has a production capacity of 4.5 million deadweight tons (DWT), with a 3.8-km coastline, four docks and three production lines.

Work on the second phase, with a 3.5-million-DWT capacity, is to start in 2009 and finish in about 2012, CSSC chief economist Guo Xiwen told Xinhua.

Construction of the Changxing base was a major step in China's goal of becoming a leading world shipbuilder, said CSSC general manager Chen Xiaojin.

Tuesday was the 143rd anniversary of the Jiangnan Shipyard, which was founded in the late Qing Dynasty as China's first manufacturing base for steel, naval ships and steel cannons.

China is the world's third-largest shipbuilder after the Republic of Korea and Japan. It accounted for 23 percent of the world market, with a production capacity of 19 million DWT, in 2007.

(Xinhua News Agency June 3, 2008)