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Chinese shipbuilders see 32% drop in newbuild orders in 2022

Photo: CSSC CSSC Jiangnan shipyard.jpg
Newbuilding orders declined 32% for Chinese shipyards according to the statistics released by China Association of the National Shipbuilding Industry (CANSI).

While newbuilding orders fell CANSI claimed China retained the crown of being the world’s largest shipbuilding nation ahead of rival South Korea.

China posted a shipbuilding output of 37.86m dwt, dropped 4.6% year-on-year; the newly received shipbuilding order was 45.52m dwt, declining 32.1%. As the end of December 2022, the orderbook on hand was 105.57m dwt, an increasing of 10.2% year-on-year.

Shipbuilding export volume was 30.67m dwt, dropping 14.6%; newly-received export shipbuilding orders were 40.56m dwt, declining 31.7%; export orders on hand were 95.22m dwt as the end of December 2022, growing 12.6%, accounting for 81%, 89.1% and 90.2% of national volume respectively. 

In 2022, six Chinese yards entered into world’s top 10 shipbuilding companies list. Concentration ratio for shipbuilding volume, newly received orders and orders on hand of these six shipyards all maintained a high level. 

Chinese yards’ newly received orders for bulk carrier, containership, car carrier and crude oil tanker accounted for 74.3%,56.8%, 88.7% and 66.1% in global market, and the large-size LNG carrier’s new orderbook ratio exceeded 30% for the first time. 

CANSI forecasts that China’s shipbuilding output will surpass 42m dwt in 2023, newly-received order volume will be around 40-50m dwt and the orders on hand will stay at 100m at the end of 2023.