Decreased Shipbuilding Orders
The amount of the orders received by Korean shipbuilders plummeted last month. Although they recorded the largest amount of orders in the world in February this year, they were overtaken by China and Japan in just two months.
According to market research firm Clarkson, Korean shipbuilders obtained orders worth 294,167 compensated gross tonnage (CGT) in April to post a negative growth of 84.8 percent from a year earlier.
Meanwhile, their Chinese and Japanese counterparts won 1,103,857 CGT and 604,664 CGT during the same month to increase their global market shares to 48.8 percent and 26.7 percent, respectively. Korea followed them with a monthly share of 13.0 percent, caught up with by Japan for the first time in 15 months since January 2013.
The cumulative orders for the first four months of 2014 totaled 4,441,372 CGT for the Korean companies, 17.0 percent down from a year ago. China increased the amount by 10.8 percent to 6,034,231 CGT to retain the top spot, and Japan ranked third with 2,194,842 CGT.
The sluggish performance of Korean shipbuilders as of late can be attributed to the decrease in the orders for specialty vessels they are good at and the recent delay in offshore plant construction projects. Those for LNG carriers and offshore plants are showing a conspicuous decrease these days. Still, industry insiders are expecting that the amount is likely to take a positive turn in the second half of this year once a series of new orders are placed for super-large container carriers, LNG carriers and offshore plant facilities.