 Design work of Type 917 begun in 1982 and was completed in the following year by the 708th Institute of China State Shipbuilding Corporation, which is also more commonly known as China Shipbuilding and Oceanic Engineering Design Academy (中国船舶及海洋工程设计研究) nowadays.Work on two ships begun simultaneously in September 1983 and both were completed in 1990.The reason for such protracted construction was because the design included many high tech features that was brand new to China in the early 1980s, such as HD5L/D automatic control, hydraulic crane, centralized control of propulsion and centralized air conditioning.