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China shipbuilders see 11% fall in new orders in first eight months

China shipbuilders see 11% fall in new orders in first eight months
Chinese yards have recorded 15.85m dwt in new order tonnage for the January to August 2017 period, representing a 11.3% year-on-year drop as shipowners’ appetite for newbuildings remained lacklustre amid the oversupply of ships.

The declining figure on new orders has resulted in a deflated order backlog at China’s shipyards, which stood at 81.11m dwt as at 31 August 2017, a decrease of 29% on a year-on-year comparison and down 18.6% compared to end-2016, according to data from the China Association of the National Shipbuilding Industry (Cansi).

In completed newbuild tonnage, Chinese shipyards built a total of 31.32m dwt between January to August, an increase of 41.4% compared to the same period of 2016.

Cansi figures further zoomed in to show that China’s 53 leading shipyards sat on a combined new order of 14.75m dwt, taking up 93.1% of the country’s newbuilding market share.

The 53 leading yards completed new vessel tonnage of 27.34m dwt, an increase of 33.2% year-on-year, and sat on an order backlog of 77.61m dwt, down 29.4%.

Cansi also monitors 80 main shipyards showing that their combined completed newbuild ships were valued at RMB259bn ($40.3bn) in the first eight months, a decrease of 4.9% year-on-year.

Among the total value, shipbuilding accounted for RMB110bn, equipment took up RMB16.9bn and repairs amounted to RMB7.7bn.

The 80 main shipyards generated a total revenue of RMB180bn from January to August 2017, a decline of 6% compared to the previous corresponding period while total profit plunged by 20.6% to RMB2.2bn.