Shipbuilding Industry Develops Apace

According to the China Association of the National Shipbuilding Industry, in first half of 2023, China's shipbuilding industry topped global rankings in three crucial categories — shipbuilding output, new orders and holding orders.

Three crucial categories

As of the end of June 2023, the volume of shipbuilding output had surpassed 21.13 million deadweight tonnes (DWT), an increase of 14.2% year on year, accounting for 49.6% of the world's total.

Orders for new ships reached 37.67 million DWT, an increase of 67.7% year on year, accounting for 72.6% of the world's total.

Holding orders grew to 123.77 million DWT, an increase of 20.5% year on year, or 17.2% compared to the end of 2022, accounting for 53.2% of the world's total.

High-tech and high value-added ships

In the first half of this year, China completed the building of 88 vessels, for a total of 2.75 million compensated gross tonnage, accounting for 37% of the world's total shipbuilding completions.

China has delivered 11 container ships with a capacity of 24,000 twenty-foot equivalent units each, accounting for 84.6% of the world's market share.

The first 40,000-cubic-meter medium-sized fully-refrigerated liquefied gas carrier in China, the world's largest 80,000-cubic-meter river-sea intermodal liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier, a 22,000-cubic-meter very large ethane carrier, and a new generation LNG carrier with a capacity of 174,000 cubic meters were all completed.