China's new vessel orders jump 50% y-o-y during Jan-May

Chinese shipbuilders received new vessel orders totalling 26.45 million deadweight tons (DWT) over January-May, surging by 49.5% compared the same period last year, among which 91.3% were for exports, according to latest data released by the China Association of the National Shipbuilding Industry (CANSI) on Thursday.

For May alone, China's shipyards secured new orders of 6.6 million DWT, up 41.3% from April, the CANSI data found.

In the first five months of this year, the country's shipbuilders completed vessels equivalent to 16.47 million DWT, up by 15.4% on year, with 85.1% going to exports, according to CANSI. And the tonnage completed in May logged an on-month uptick of 1.1% to reach 3.67 million DWT.

In sync with the growth in new vessel orders, China's shipyards also saw their order backlog increase by 15.5% on year to settle at 117.99 million DWT by the end of May. Among the total orders the yards were nursing, 91.8% were for exports, the data showed.

The CANSI statistics suggested that the total value of Chinese ships exported during the first five months amounted to $8.86 billion, climbing by 21.1% on year. Among the total, the exports of bulk carriers, oil tankers and container ships retained their leading roles.

In terms of vessel types, bulk carriers were still the largest segment in both completed vessels and new orders over January-May, making up 55% and 42.1% of the respective totals.

Meanwhile, container ships accounted for 27.2% of the completed ships, as against the 24.8% share in the prior four months, while oil tankers contributed to 29.3% of the new orders won, higher by 3 percentage points than the first four months, Mysteel Global noted from the data.

The new data also showed that 69.6% of all vessels completed over January-May were made by the country's top 10 shipbuilding enterprises. Shipbuilders in Jiangsu, Shanghai, Zhejiang and Shandong in East China, and Liaoning in Northeast China together produced 92.2% of the country's completed vessels.

Of these, Jiangsu province played a crucial role in the domestic shipbuilding industry with its completed vessels topping 8 million DWT over January-May, according to the release.

In the past five months, Chinese shipbuilders saw their combined new orders, order backlog and completed vessels account for 67.3%, 51.6% and 48.1% of the global totals, respectively, the CANSI statistics showed.

Written by Rong Zhang, zhangronga@mysteel.com

Edited by Alyssa Ren, rentingting@mysteel.com

Note: This article has been published under an article exchange agreement between Mysteel Global and SteelMint.