A container ship Photos: VCG

The world's largest container ship, built by China State Shipbuilding Corporation, can carry 24,000 twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) containers, and was handed over in Shanghai to its client on Wednesday.

The ship was independently designed by Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding Co, a subsidiary of China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC). Hudong-Zhonghua owns the ship's independent intellectual property rights, China Central Television (CCTV) reported.

After being put into operation, it will serve routes from the Far East to Europe. The mega ship, measures 399.99 meters long, is more than 60 meters longer than the world's current largest aircraft carrier. It is 61.03 meters wide and has a deck area of more than 24,000 square meters, about the size of three and a half soccer fields.

With a depth of 33.2 meters, the cargo hold can carry 240,000 tons of goods. The maximum stack of containers can be up to 25 stories high, equivalent to the height of a 22-story building, CCTV reported.

As two notable highlights, the company applied bubble drag reduction system and shaft generator system -- the bubble drag reduction system not only effectively reduces the total energy consumption of the ship, but also reduces the corresponding carbon emission by 3-4 percent, according to a statement released by the shipbuilder.

The company said on June 11 that it was building four 24,000-TEU container ships now.

China's ship building capacity has improved rapidly during recent years. Chinese ship builders topped the three major metrics used by the global shipbuilding industry in 2021, with the highest number of received orders, according to data released by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in January.

Chinese shipbuilders accounted for about 50 percent of the global production volume, with CSSC, the nation's largest shipbuilder, surpassing South Korea's Hyundai Heavy Industries to become the world's largest shipbuilder now.

Global Times