Apart from promoting investment facilitation and trade liberalization in the whole industrial chain of oil products, the Zhejiang FTZ, together with both domestic and overseas companies, has envisaged Zhoushan as a hub for ship maintenance services with the latest sustainable solutions in the region.

The government has to date closed 32 substandard shipyards to meet its goals, according to information released by the Zhoushan government. Total output value of maintenance services in the region for foreign ships jumped by 24.7 percent on a yearly basis to 5.51 billion yuan ($853 million).

A vessel engine room is where the majority of machines are located. Each machine on board a ship requires maintenance. It has to be carried out at regular intervals, said Mohit Kaushik, a marine engineer at Maersk Shipping, a Danish shipping company.

"Efficient planning and adequate use of equipment is the key to productive maintenance," said Kaushik, adding that the main types of maintenance procedures are preventive or scheduled maintenance, corrective or breakdown maintenance and condition maintenance services.

As many countries are still trying to mitigate the pandemic effect, a significant number of overseas shipyards have shuttered operations, and a growing number of maintenance and repair orders have shifted back to China since the second half of last year. This trend will grow further this year, said Sun Yunfei, vice-president of Shanghai-headquartered COSCO Shipbuilding Heavy Industry Co.

He said many vessels have started to request maintenance appointments six months in advance from last year. Foreign vessels accounted for more than half of these orders in its shipyards in Zhoushan, Dalian, Liaoning province, and Yangzhou, Jiangsu province.