China ranked first in three indices measuring the development and the capacity of a country’s shipbuilding industry in 2017, according to official data by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) as presented by Xinhua news agency.
Namely, data showed that China’s completion rate of ships reached 41.9% of the global total, while the country also had 45.5% of global new orders and 44.6% of holding orders, said the MIIT.
The three indices showed that China is consolidating its status as the world’s leading shipbuilding nation, said Luo Wen, vice minister of the MIIT.
From the 1950s to the beginning of the 21st century, the three indices were topped by Japan or South Korea. In 2010, China exceeded South Korea and ranked first in the world. The record was held until China was surpassed again by South Korea in the index for completion of ships in 2016 and ranked second.
In general, the South Korean shipbuilding has been suffering a financial pressure since the 2008 global economic crisis, which minimized new orders and stressed the competition from Chinese shipbuilding market. Only in 2015, the country’s top three shipyards, Hyundai Heavy Industries, Samsung Heavy Industries and Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering, suffered a combined operating loss of 8.5 trillion won, according to Yonhap. In 2017, Hyundai Heavy decided to impose rotational leave scheme for its workers, to tackle the problem of idle workforce.
The three shipbuilders recently expressed higher order goals for 2018, in line with expectations for an overall improvement in the shipbuilding sector.
