Nippon Paint Marine strengthens China strategy amid transition

With global shipping shifting toward greener and more digital operations, Nippon Paint Marine, a subsidiary of the Singapore-based Nipsea Group, will deepen its presence in China, positioning the country as a core manufacturing, innovation, and growth hub for its worldwide marine coating business, a senior executive said.

China occupies irreplaceable strategic importance, Gladys Goh, President of Nippon Paint Marine, said.

As a home to many of the world's largest shipbuilders, ship repair yards, and maritime equipment clusters, China provides unmatched scale, supply-chain depth, and application scenarios for next-generation coating technologies, Goh said.

Over the past two years, Nippon Paint Marine has posted double-digit annual growth in China, fueled by a rising demand from shipyards and repair centers, as well as a growing number of global shipowners turning to Chinese yards for maintenance and upgrades.

In addition to architectural coatings, Goh said that marine coatings have long been a core pillar of Nipsea's global growth strategy. The company to date has built a product portfolio covering primers, topcoats, thinners, and high-performance antifouling systems for both newly built vessels and repair projects.

Its recent innovations include an antifouling system — designed to cut fuel consumption and carbon emissions — and a solar-reflective coating product that helps reduce vessel temperatures.

In the global push to combat climate change, the shipping industry, which is responsible for most of the world's trade volume, faces mounting pressure to slash its carbon footprint. The International Maritime Organization solidified this urgency in April by mandating its net-zero framework — targeting carbon neutrality for international shipping by 2050.

Goh said that leveraging Nippon Paint China's manufacturing, logistics, research and development capabilities, Nippon Paint Marine has been able to rapidly localize production, shorten delivery cycles, and respond swiftly to customer needs.

This integrated model also enables the company to deliver tailored solutions to shipyards, enhance after-sale technical support, and strengthen competitiveness in a market where reliability and efficiency are crucial, she added.

As part of its efforts to support greener and more efficient vessel operations, Nippon Paint Marine signed a technical cooperation agreement with Lloyd's Register, a global maritime technical and professional services organization, in Shanghai on Tuesday. Both parties will further evaluate the performance of certain Nippon Paint Marine's antifouling paints on vessels.

This collaboration aims to verify the energy-saving performance and carbon reduction potential of these antifouling paints in actual navigation, providing the industry with more credible selection criteria, Goh Chung Hun, president and strategic business partner (Singapore) of Lloyd's Register, said.