Jiangmen Nanyang Ship Engineering Co. Ltd. (JNS), a privately-owned Chinese company, hopes to make an initial public offer (IPO) in Hong Kong, Singapore or Shanghai within 3 years and is now seeking strategic pre-IPO investors to share technology and management expertise, general manager David Huang told Reuters yesterday.

The Guangzhou-based shipbuilder aims to grab a tenth of the global handy-size ship market and deliver 16 handysizes a year by 2011. It has invested about RMB 700 million (US$97million) in its yard and has already started designing a second yard 15km away, which will double its investment.

According to Huang, Jiangmen Nanyang has longer term goals and looks beyond the imminent U.S. recession and dampened Asian IPO arena, which has affected the share prices of industry peers like Yangzijiang Shipbuilding and Guangzhou Shipyard<600685><317>. It has secured orders for more than 20 vessels this year.

Jiangmen Nanyang delivered its first vessel - a 32,500 deadweight-ton ship to Pacific Basin Shipping<2343>, which is listed in Hong Kong.