China cements position as world’s top shipbuilder in 2023

According to statistics released by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, China’s shipbuilding output for 2023 was 42.32m dwt, an increase of 11.8% year-on-year. Newbuilding orders totaled 71.2m dwt, up 56.4%. Orders on hand as the end of December 2023 were 139.39m dwt, an increase of 32%.

In 2023, China’s shipbuilding output, newly received orders and orders on hand accounted for 50.2%, 66.6% and 55% of global shipbuilding market share. It is the first time to see double-digital growth of all three indexes of China.

These encouraging numbers represent China shipbuilding industry is on the rise among global market and well demonstrate China’s overall shipbuilding capacity, said Li Yanqing, Secretary-General of China Association of the National Shipbuilding Industry (CANSI).

Among all the eighteen major ship types, China’s new contracts of fourteen vessel types rank the first worldwide. Bulk carriers, oil tankers, containerships and automobile carriers’ newly-received order volume were 79.6%, 72.1%, 47.8% and 82.7% in global market.

Orders-on-hand will keep the Chinese shipyards busy for least the next three years.