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CSSC and CSIC Pause Trading as Shipbuilding Mega-Merger Nears Finale

CSSC shipyard
File image courtesy CSSC

Published Aug 13, 2025 3:19 PM by The Maritime Executive

China's two state shipbuilding giants are moving ahead with the maritime mega-merger of the century. CSSC and CSIC, once one entity, have halted trading in their respective shares in anticipation of becoming one combined company, CSSC. 

The much-anticipated merger has been a long time developing, and it brings CSSC full-circle. The company spun off CSIC as a separate entity in 1999, giving the newly-formed firm control of government-owned yards in northern China and creating new competition in the domestic industry. CSIC's assets include Dalian Shipyard, Bohai Shipyard, Wuchang Shipyard and a wide variety of associated support infrastructure. Its yards hold a large share of the giant PLA Navy warship construction portfolio, as well as a full docket of commercial orders. 

CSIC came under the CSSC umbrella in 2019, but it retained its separate management structure and its constellation of design, R&D, administration and supply-chain departments. This duplicated many of the same costs and functionalities found within CSSC, preventing the combined entity from realizing savings from the re-merger. 

In September 2024, CSSC announced that it would be consolidating the two groups' giant corporate structures into a single entity. Anticipated gains include cost savings, better coordination on supply ordering and production sequencing, strengthened defense shipbuilding, and reduced competition. 

To re-merge, CSSC will swap shares with CSIL shareholders in the largest absorption merger ever conducted in China's A-share listed market. CSIC will be incorporated into CSSC and will disappear as a separate brand, and CSSC will become the world's largest unified shipbuilding company by assets and revenue (it was already the world's largest shipbuilding group). 

As of the end of 2024, Chinese yards held more than 60 percent of the world's shipbuilding orders, with CSSC/CSIC accounting for the largest share.