Josefa Slipways was founded in 2005 in Navotas, which is known for its shipbuilding and fisheries industry. Its incorporators established the company to provide shipbuilding and ship repair facilities to passenger and freight shipping companies, fishing companies, energy and mining, companies and port construction companies operating in the
Port of Manila and other ports in the Philippines. It also provides its services to civilian maritime government agencies such as the
Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) and
Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR). It employed local shipbuilding veterans and owns two slipways in the city for docking and launching of vessels. The company specializes in building landing crafts, ferries, patrol vessels, fisheries vessels and small cargo vessels. It is the first Filipino shipbuilding and ship repair company to build hulls using
high-tensile steel in compliance with
International Association of Classification Societies standards. It completed construction and launched the vessels, which were named
BRP Lapu-Lapu and
BRP Francisco Dagohoy respectively, on 11 August 2017 and delivered it to the BFAR in February 2018 following successful sea trials. On November 18, 2017, Josefa Slipways opened a larger shipbuilding and ship repair facility in
Sual,
Pangasinan, where it will build 10 50-meter multi-mission vessels for the BFAR. Josefa Slipways also constructed its first
ROPAX ferry vessel, MV
Isla Simara, for Filipino shipping company Shogun Ships. The 72-meter steel vessel was delivered to the customer of 17 August 2019 and will be used to transport passengers and cargo between
Sorsogon and
Northern Samar. It is the first
RORO vessel to be built in the Philippines since the 1990s. ==References==