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China shipyards orderbook continue shrinking in first seven months

China shipyards orderbook continue shrinking in first seven months
The newbuildings order backlog at China’s shipyards has been shrinking over this year, in line with reduced bookings from shipowners, according to the latest figures released by the China Association of the National Shipbuilding Industry (Cansi).

As at 31 July 2017, orderbook on hand at Chinese shipbuilders stood at 80.28m dwt, a decrease of 31.5% on a year-on-year comparison and down 19.4% compared to end-2016, Cansi data showed.

The end-July orderbook has further shrunk from the 82.84m dwt seen at end-June and from the higher 92.07m dwt recorded at end-February this year.

The deflating orderbook followed the decline in new orders received by the Chinese shipyards, with the figure coming up to 13.24m dwt between January to July this year, down by 25.1% compared to the same period of last year.

In completed newbuild tonnage, Chinese yards built a total of 29.78m dwt in the first seven months of this year, representing a sharp 55.1% plunge compared to the year-ago period.

Cansi figures also showed that 53 leading shipyards dominated the Chinese market with combined new orders of 12.14m dwt, accounting for 91.7% of the country’s newbuilding market share.

The 53 leading yards completed newbuild tonnage of 25.99m dwt and sat on an order backlog of 76.52m dwt, taking up 87.3% and 95.3% respectively of the market share.

Cansi further monitors 80 main yards showing that their combined completed newbuildings were valued at RMB225.8bn ($34.41bn) in the first seven months, down 5.1% year-on-year. Among the total value, shipbuilding accounted for RMB96bn, equipment took up RMB15bn and repairs amounted to RMB6.7bn.

The 80 main shipyards generated a total revenue of RMB151bn from January to July this year, a dip of 9% year-on-year while total profit saw a bigger drop of 28% to RMB1.8bn.