EVER ACME Photo: Courtesy of Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding Co

China's shipbuilding sector topped the global market in 2022 in terms of orders and vessel completion, according to industry data released on Thursday.

Experts said that Chinese shipbuilding companies have more advantages in productivity, production stability and other aspects, compared with their foreign counterparts. The performance of the shipbuilding sector also highlighted the resilience of Chinese industries, they noted.

From January to November, China led the world in terms of vessel completion and orders, data from the China Association of the National Shipbuilding Industry (CANSI) showed on Thursday. 

China held 45.5 percent of the global market in vessel completion, with 53.1 percent of new orders and 48.5 percent of orders on hand. 

Data from UK-based Clarkson Research also revealed on Thursday that China topped the global list for new orders in 2022, accounting for 49 percent of the total orders worldwide. 

Among the 41.93 million compensated gross tons (CGTs) of global orders, China had contracts for 20.34 million CGTs in new orders, ranking first and surpassing South Korea's 15.64 million CGTs, the Clarkson data showed.   

China and South Korea have comparable technical strength in shipbuilding, as China has mature technology for constructing large-scale container vessels with clean materials, while South Korea has advantages in building liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers, Zheng Ping, chief analyst of industry news chineseport.cn, told the Global Times on Thursday. 

Factoring in issues like strikes faced by South Korean companies, Chinese shipbuilders are more competitive in terms of productivity, production stability, labor and on-time completion.

The CANSI data also indicated a continuous improvement of benefits for domestic shipbuilding companies.

In the first 11 months of 2022, the 75 monitored Chinese ship enterprises saw a total of 280.33 billion yuan ($40.23 billion) in income from main businesses, a year-on-year increase of 11.3 percent, while total profits were up 109.4 percent to 7.54 billion yuan. 

Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding Co under China State Shipbuilding Corp (CSSC) and China Shipbuilding Trading Co delivered the world's largest ultra-large containership, EVER ACME, on Thursday. The ship, which can carry 24,000 standard containers, was delivered four months ahead of schedule, according to a statement sent to the Global Times by Hudong-Zhonghua.

In 2022, Hudong-Zhonghua completed and delivered 16 vessels totaling 1.34 million deadweight tons (DWTs), of which medium- and high-end products such as LNG carriers and large and ultra-large container vessels accounted for 90 percent of the total orders. 

The company won orders for 47 new vessels with a total of 4.33 million DWTs, including 38 large LNG carriers, setting a record for the highest number of annual orders for LNG carriers among Chinese shipyards and ranking second globally. 

CSSC said on December 23 that it delivered 209 ships in 2022, amounting to 14,06 million DWTs. The company also maintained world leadership in new orders and orders on hand.

Global Times