This Day, That Year: March 20

Editor's note: This year marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of New China.

On March 20, 1954, the passenger liner Minzhong was launched into the Yangtze River. As the then largest home-built liner, the four-floor ship was designed to accommodate 947 people.

It had a wide range of facilities to enhance passenger enjoyment.

The Yangtze cruise industry took off in the 1980s, boosted by the river's slow current, which makes for easy navigation, and the magnificent landscape that flanks the waterway.

An item from March 7, 1986, in China Daily showed luxury ship The Great Wall arriving in Shanghai after a trial voyage from Chongqing.

It took tourists on trips down the Yangtze River, according to the Great Yangtze Travel Company, the operator of a joint venture of two Shanghai companies and a Hong Kong company.

The Chinese cruise industry has been growing rapidly in recent years. Passengers made 4.89 million trips on cruise liners last year, compared with about 10,000 a decade earlier, according to the China Cruise and Yacht Industry Association.

The country aims to become the Asia-Pacific region's largest cruise market by 2020, according to plans provided by the Ministry of Transport.

The ministry identified Northeast and Southeast Asia and the Taiwan Straits as some of the main cruise areas for the industry by 2020.

According to the Cruise Lines International Association, by 2025, the number of Chinese travelers who will have experienced cruise trips is expected to grow to 8 to 10 million.

The growing capacity of China's cruise market has also driven global players to ramp up their investment.

Last year, China State Shipbuilding Corp, Carnival Corp and Fincantieri started a project to build two 135,500-metric-ton Vista-class cruise ships. The project marks the first time China will build a large, advanced cruise ship domestically.

The contracted price of each ship is $770 million. The first of the vessels is scheduled to be delivered in September 2023; the second will follow in 2024.