Recent Chinese exports in helicopter and ships

In my review of 2012, I mentioned recent Chinese exports as one of the overlooked areas in recent Chinese news. More than anything, China has been having a lot of success exporting smaller ships and helicopters. I have captured a series of photos from various Chinese shipyards this year for export orders. They do not include all of the ships that they've launched or handed over this year, but we will go through that in the second part.

First, we have the missile boat that was built for the Pakistani Navy. One was built in Tianjin shipyard as shown below and the other was built in Pakistan.

Next, we currently have a littoral patrol craft built for Bangladesh Navy. Two Such LPCs are built for BN and they were launched about a month apart from the WuChang shipyard.

Most recently, we have seen Patrol Boat for Malta. They have received quit a lot of order for patrol boats and FACs from African countries in the recent years.

And this is a patrol ship that WuChang shipyard built for Namibia. This has already finished sea trials and been delivered already.

Next, we have 3 ships that were part of PLAN that is undergoing work to be transferred to Myanmar Navy. They are 2 Jianghu class frigates (554 & 557) and Type 037 class ship 772. I believe 771 is also getting transferred to PLAN. At this point, it's most likely that these ships are transferred rather than sold, but still good to have Myanmar Navy using Chinese equipments that will rely on Chinese supplies/part for weapon system.

Other than these ships, I have also recorded these additional exports of helicopters and naval ships from the past year or so.

• Late 2011, 4 patrol boats (FACs) for Ghana
• Late 2011, 6 H425 for Bolivia
• Jan 2012, 12 AC-312 (Z-9) for Cambodia
• March 2012, 2 (535, 536) retrofitted Jianghu for Bangladesh
• March 2012, Z-11 production in Argentina
• April 2012, 2 OPVs for Nigeria
• May 2012, 3 F-22A for Algeria
• Nov 2012, 4 more F-22Ps for Pakistan
• Nov 2012, Z-9 for Zambia

So There have been quite a few success stories. This is something that I will follow up and update on next year. Chinese shipyards are doing really well in this low end naval/security ship market. Chinese helicopter companies are also doing a good job of selling Z-9s and Z-11s to third world countries. I think they are probably taking market share away from Russians and some Europeans. This is a trend that I expect to continue in the coming years.