China Association of the National Shipbuilding Industry (Cansi) has recorded a continuing drop in new shipbuilding contracts at Chinese yards from January to September this year.
In the first nine months of 2015, Chinese shipyards received newbuilding orders with tonnage amounting to 18.16m dwt, a fall of 65.4% compared to the same period of 2014, according to figures from Cansi. New shipbuilding contracts placed by foreign owners were at 15.69m dwt, down 68% year-on-year.
Among the total, 54 leading yards monitored by Cansi won 16.43m dwt of new vessel tonnage, representing a 66.5% decrease compared to the same period of last year.
From January-September this year, China’s shipbuilders completed a combined vessel tonnage of 29.37m dwt, an increase of 12.7% compared to the previous corresponding period.
The 54 leading yards produced 27.02m dwt of new vessel capacity, taking up 92% of China’s market share, where around 300 yards are in business but only about 100 have active day-to-day operations.
As at the end of September this year, Chinese shipyards sat on an existing orderbook of 133.27m dwt, down 13.9% year-on-year and 10.8% compared to end-2014, Cansi figures showed.
Cansi also monitored 88 main Chinese yards, with figures showing that their combined completed new vessel tonnage was valued at RMB310bn ($49bn), an increase of 4.3% year-on-year. Shipbuilding accounted for RMB149bn of the total, while equipment and ship repair took up RMB24.8bn and RMB9.7bn respectively.
The 88 main shipyards achieved a total revenue of RMB220bn in the first nine months, an improvement of 3.1% over the year-ago period. Profit, however, declined by 13.1% to RMB3.3bn due primarily to lower newbuilding prices and higher costs of production.
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