South Korea’s shipyards have topped the global newbuilding orderbook in 2020, edging out her closest rival China.
Korean shipbuilders won orders of 8.19m compensate gross tonnage (cgt) for 187 vessels in 2020, taking up 43% of the world’s total of 19.24 cgt on 738 vessels, according to data from Clarkson Research.
China came in second with 7.93m cgt on 353 ships, or 41% of the world’s total.
In December 2020 alone, Korean yards swept 73% of global orders by securing 2.85m cgt for 42 ships out of a total of 3.92m cgt for 86 ships. This was followed by China with 1.01m cgt for 39 ships and Croatia with 30,000 cgt for just one vessel.
In terms of shipbuilding output, China ranked number one with 38.53m dwt, an increase of 4.9% year-on-year, according to the statistics released by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
Five Chinese shipbuilders ranked in the world’s top 10 in shipbuilding volume, while six were in the top 10 for newbuilding orders and orderbook on hand.