CCS Moves into the Survey Business

    In the early days of new China, all industries were awaiting development. The transport of overseas trade required urgent development but was hindered by sea blockades installed by various international bodies. China did not have the authority to issue certificates to allow its ships to trade internationally. Therefore, in line with common international practices, the MOC established its own ship survey organization. In 1951, at the 2nd National Meeting on Navigation, the MOC confirmed its decision to establish the Register of Shipping of the People's Republic of China. In 1952, Chen Yun, director of the Finance and Economy Committee under the Government Administrative Council approved the MOC formally to establish the Register of Shipping. A preparation office was set up the following year to lead the ship survey departments of the port and shipping administration bureaus directly under the MOC in undertaking technical supervision and surveying for ship safety. Starting in 1954, the MOC began to recruit technicians from shipping and shipbuilding enterprises and train surveyors to establish the survey team.
After five years' hard work, on 1 August 1956, the MOC formally established the Register of Shipping of the People's Republic of China in Beijing. The MOC also announced the ship's load line mark and major certificate form emblem as ZC. ZC was responsible for developing the rules and survey standards and technical research for ships and for organizing relevant ship survey departments to perform statutory, classification and necessary interim surveys, according to specified requirements, to ships both in service and under construction. As a result, the Chinese ship survey business broke new ground by shouldering the tasks of both ship classification and safety supervision. It steadily developed under the planned economy, protecting the safety of waterborne transport in China.
    In 1958, ZC changed its Chinese name but left its English name untouched, and was recognized domestically as a body of technical legislation and supervision for ships and internationally as a classification society, thus establishing its position of both a government administrative department and a public organization.
    In 1959, with approval from the State Council, ZC was authorized to act on behalf of the Chinese Government to issue certificates to ships trading internationally. In the same year, with support from relevant ministries and administrations of the central government, ZC investigated and summarized experiences and lessons from the Great Leap Forward that took place in 1958 and conducted inspection of marine products during production. ZC's first set of ship rules and classification regulations were developed and implemented. Gradually the survey of ships and marine products spread with the development of shipping and shipbuilding in China. In 1960, ZC started ship classification. In April 1961, ZC completed survey and certification to China's first ocean ship Guang Hua, making the ship succeed in transporting the overseas Chinese from Indonesia back to China.
In 1963, the sinking of the ocean-bound ship Yue Jin hastened the Chinese government's legislation of ship survey organizations. The legal status of ship survey and classification services was clearly defined in the Statute of the Register of Shipping approved by the State Council. Consequently, ZC strengthened its rules development and research, modified and/or substantiated the rules and technical criteria concerning ship safety, further improved ship survey service systems, established its Technical Committee in 1965, enhanced the ship survey and classification management and performed marine product inspection at the manufacturer's premises to guarantee the quality and safety of ships during construction.
    During the Cultural Revolution, the ship survey business in China suffered severe setbacks. In 1972, after Premier Zhou Enlai attempted to put an end to the use of chartered foreign vessels to transport foreign goods in 1975, the national fleet developed quickly through purchasing and building. By 1978, the ZC class fleet exceeded 5,000,000 in gross tonnage. As offshore oil exploration and container transport developed in China, ZC's survey and technical services began to cover the survey of mobile offshore drilling unit during construction in 1972 and the survey of water-borne container during construction in 1978.
    In 1973, after the Chinese government acceded to the International Maritime Organization (IMO), ZC appointed technical experts to the government delegation and participated in the consideration of international maritime conventions regarding technical standards for ship safety. This brought ZC continuous, thorough and complete exposure to the developing trends of international navigation and shipbuilding technology, enhanced its own personnel training and technical research, and built up a necessary reserve of talent and technology for CCS to move forward in internationalization and global development.