A ten-year development program has been drawn up to develop Xiamen, a port city in southeast China's Fujian province, into a shipbuilding base by 2015, said the municipal source.

According to the plan, a group of shipbuilding and shipyard enterprises will be built in the city, which are set to handle 100,000-tonnage vessels and other relevant services and equipments.

Shipbuilding will be a key industry in Xiamen, a place on the west bank of the Taiwan Straits, which is expected to bring along development of the electro-mechanical sector, steel and tourism, said an official with the local economic development bureau.

The official expects city's annual shipbuilding capacity to reach 800,000 tons by 2010 with total industrial output value reaching 3.2 billion yuan (US$395 million), which will be furthered to one million tons and 4 billion yuan (US$493 million), respectively, by 2015.

(Xinhua News Agency November 17, 2005)