The new facility in Qingdao, Shandong province, will customise vessels for the local market, executives said at a press conference announcing the development, held in Beijing this week.

The Italian superyacht maker, whose brands include Riva, Ferretti, Pershing and Bertram, was recently acquired by Chinese bulldozer maker, Shandong Heavy Industry Group-Weichai Group. The group took 75 per cent majority ownership in January, bringing the troubled yacht-maker's debts down  to €116 million (US$144 million) from €760 million following a restructuring,

Since the sale, Ferretti Group has been making aggressive plans to boost sales in emerging markets led by China, Brazil and Russia, the report said, as the Euro-zone debt crisis dampens appetite in Europe.

The new ownership has brought "new opportunities to the company (and) Weichai Group's influence in the industry and its financial strengths will spur Ferretti's strategy," Ferretti chief executive officer Ferruccio Rossi was quoted as saying.

In his speech at the press conference, Tan Xuguang, chairman of Shandong Heavy Industry Group and chairman of the board of Ferretti, said that Weichai Group's strategic restructuring of Ferretti group would realize three key goals: Firstly, from being a local Chinese brand Weichai Group would leap forward to become international; Secondly, the Group has extended its ground engine manufacturing to encompass maritime engine manufacturing; Thirdly, Weichai Group would go beyond managing a local team to being involved in global operations.

He added that China has evolved from being a "country of production" to becoming a "country of consumption". In the industrial development cycle, a GDP model driven solely by investment will be replaced by one driven by both investment and consumption. "With an ever-expanding Chinese middle and upper class, there will be more consumers and higher consumption, which is certain to boost the development of yacht market in China," he said.

The China Association of National Shipbuilding Industry estimates that by 2020, China's yacht market will be worth RMB 50 billion. In China, the population of individuals with more than US$30million of liquid assets grew by a fifth last year, according to Boston Consulting Group.