Owing to Cruise Ships
According to Clarksons Research, Italian shipbuilders clinched contracts worth a total of 1.24 million CGT between January and November this year. During the same period, Chinese, South Korean and Japanese shipbuilders reached 3.75 million, 1.63 million and 1.12 million CGT, respectively.
This is the first time in about 20 years that a country other than the three Northeast Asian countries joined the top three. Back in 1998, German shipbuilders had ranked third.
Italian shipbuilders’ excellent performance in the market dominated by the three countries in Northeast Asia is because orders for cruise ships followed one after another in Europe. In the third quarter of this year, that type of orders accounted for 26% of the total orders for new ships to hit an all-time high.
In the meantime, South Korean shipbuilders are failing to win such contracts. Cruise ships require not only shipbuilding techniques but also those related to various types of equipment, materials, interior design and many more. South Korean shipbuilders, however, are specialized in merchant vessels in general such as container carriers and tankers. They can purchase interior materials for cruise ships from Europe, but costs rise in that case.