S. Korea leads global shipbuilding market in H1

South Korea regained its status as the world's leading shipbuilding nation in the first half, taking more than half of the global market in terms of orders measured in weight, the government said Sunday.

In the January-June period, the country's shipyards secured orders for 224 ships, totaling 8.92 million compensated gross tons (CGTs), according to the Ministry of Knowledge Economy.
The figure represents 53.2 percent of the 16.88 million CGTs worth of orders placed worldwide in the first half of the year.
China, the global market leader from 2009 through 2010, won orders for 258 ships during the cited period, but placed behind South Korea in terms of orders measured in CGTs and value. Chinese yards secured orders worth US$8.8 billion that amounted to 5.17 million CGTs in the six-month period.
The orders won by South Korean yards are worth $31.4 billion, already reaching over 90 percent of the $34.8 billion the country secured for the whole of 2010, according to the ministry.
The ministry earlier forecast that exports by the local shipbuilding industry would reach $51.7 billion this year.
"The country's shipbuilding sector maintained the No. 1 place in the world by focusing on value-added ships although the world's shipbuilding market shrank 10.2 percent (on-year) in the first half," the ministry said in a press release.
South Korea had been the world's largest shipbuilder in terms of new orders measured in weight from 2003 through 2008.
In the first half, South Korean shipbuilders grabbed orders for all but seven new drill ships in the world, along with the only orders for two floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) ships and two LNG-floating storage and re-gasification units (LNG-FSRU). Local yards also won orders for 19 new LNG carriers.
"The country secured orders for 69 container ships, each with a loading capacity of over 8,000 twenty-foot equivalent units, in the first half. That accounts for 75 percent of all orders placed in the world for container ships of the same capacity and 65 percent of orders for all container ships in the first six months of the year," it said.
The ministry, however, noted China was still the world's largest shipbuilder in terms of actual ships being launched.
In the first six months of the year, China constructed 511 vessels, totaling 8.36 million CGTs. South Korea built 253 ships, totaling 7.72 million CGTs, it said.
Source: Yonhap