London: The rapid rise of Chinese shipbuilders continues to reverberate around the region with latest statistics showing the People's Republic outpaced top builder Korea in terms of new orders received in January, according to Clarkson Research.
New orders at Chinese shipyards totalled 1.4m cgt last month, compared to Korea's 600,000 cgt figure.
However, South Korea maintained its No. 1 ranking in the global shipbuilding industry in terms of order backlogs and volume of vessels built, it said.
The news from China follows hot on the heels of the startling revelation that last year the mainland surpassed Japan for the first time to become the world's second largest shipbuilding nation in terms of orders in 2006. Orders for China's shipbuilders climbed to a record 24.32m gt in the 12 months ended December. This surpassed the 21.25m booked by Japanese firms, according to the Shipbuilders' Association of Japan. [22/02/07]
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