First, the development status of China's shipbuilding industry
The outbreak of the new crown pneumonia epidemic in 2020 has had a major impact on the normal social and economic operation of various countries, and has also brought an unprecedented impact on the mainland shipbuilding industry. As the COVID-19 epidemic is brought under control in China, the number of shipbuilding completions in mainland China is on the rise. According to data from the China Shipbuilding Industry Association, China's shipbuilding completion volume in 2020 was 38.53 million dwt, an increase of 4.42% year-on-year. In 2020, China's shipbuilding completion volume still ranks first in the world, with the resumption of domestic shipyards, shipbuilding completions continue to rise, by 2021 China's shipbuilding completion volume of 41.64 million dwt, an increase of 8.07% year-on-year.
Source: China Shipbuilding Industry Association, Huajing Industry Research Institute collation
After the epidemic, the status of China's global factories has further improved, and the demand for basic daily necessities in Europe, the United States and Southeast Asia has become more dependent on Chinese exports. The sharp growth in China's exports has led to a significant increase in demand for ships. The sharp rise in freight rates has brought abundant cash to shipowners, and considering the current freight rates, running a container transport can collect the cost of buying back ships, which has greatly stimulated the desire of shipowners to buy ships, so the number of new orders received by mainland shipbuilding will rise rapidly in 2021. According to data from the China Shipbuilding Industry Association, the number of new orders received by China's shipbuilding in 2021 was 62.31 million dwt, an increase of 115.38% year-on-year; in 2021, the number of handheld orders for China's shipbuilding was 97.98 million dwt, an increase of 37.79% year-on-year.
Second, the export status of China's shipbuilding industry
China is the world's major shipbuilding base, China has a complete shipbuilding industry system, so the mainland shipbuilding industry not only undertakes domestic orders, but also foreign orders. According to the data line of China Shipbuilding Industry Association, the completion of China's export ships in 2021 was 35.93 million dwt, an increase of 4.91% year-on-year, and the proportion of export ships in the national shipbuilding completion was 90.5%.
According to data from the China Shipbuilding Industry Association, the number of new orders for China's export ships in 2021 was 59.36 million dwt, an increase of 142.78% year-on-year, and export ships accounted for 88.5% of the country's new shipbuilding orders. In 2021, China's export ship handheld orders were 84.53 million dwt, an increase of 29.63% year-on-year, and export ships accounted for 88.2% of the national shipbuilding handheld orders.
Third, the development status of the shipbuilding industry in Korea and Japan
There are three major shipbuilding countries in the world, all located in East Asia, namely China, South Korea and Japan. The international market share of China's shipbuilding three major indicators remains world-leading in terms of dead weight tonnage and modified gross tonnage, with South Korea ranking second and Japan ranking third. In terms of shipbuilding completions, the completion of South Korean shipbuilding in 2020 was 24.66 million dwt, and South Korea's three major shipbuilding groups continued to monopolize the domestic new ship order market South Korean small and medium-sized shipbuilding companies are facing insufficient orders, and their market share is decreasing. In 2021, Japan's shipbuilding completion volume was 16.9 million dwt, continuing its downward trend.
Related report: "2022-2027 China Shipbuilding Market Competitive Situation and Industry Investment Potential Forecast Report" released by Huajing Industry Research Institute
Since 2018, the global shipbuilding industry has fallen into a downturn, and both new orders and handheld orders have declined to varying degrees. The global shipbuilding industry is sluggish, on the one hand, due to the stagnation of global economic development, the slow economic growth of the old capitalist countries, and the small size of emerging developing countries, which cannot drive the growth of the global economy; on the other hand, the global shipping market has become saturated after years of development.
In 2021, stimulated by the rise in global maritime freight rates, the global shipbuilding industry showed a prosperous scene, and the number of new orders received by the three major shipbuilding countries showed an upward trend. Among them, the new order volume received by South Korea in 2021 was 40.61 million dwt, an increase of 65.48% year-on-year; the new order volume in Japan in 2021 was 12.83 million dwt, an increase of 208.41% year-on-year.
In 2021, the handheld order volume of South Korea and Japan also maintained growth with the growth of new orders, and the handheld order volume of South Korea in 2021 was 67.06 million dwt, an increase of 24.35% year-on-year; in 2021, the handheld order volume of Japan was 30.86 million dwt, an increase of 12.46% year-on-year.
Fourth, the global shipbuilding industry competition pattern
The world's shipbuilding industry has been basically monopolized by China, Japan and South Korea, and among the world's three major shipbuilding indicators, the total proportion of China, Japan and South Korea is more than 95%. In 2021, the three major shipbuilding indicators of the mainland will remain the world's leading, and the growth rate of new orders will be higher than that of the world by more than 20 percentage points. Shipbuilding completions, new orders, and handheld orders accounted for 47.2%, 53.8% and 47.6% of the world total in terms of deadweight tons, respectively, an increase of 4.1, 5.0 and 2.9 percentage points compared with 2020. The international competitiveness of backbone enterprises has been enhanced, and 6 enterprises have entered the top 10 in the world in terms of shipbuilding completion, new orders and handheld orders. For the first time, the three major shipbuilding indicators of China State Shipbuilding Corporation ranked first among the world's shipbuilding enterprise groups.
From the perspective of shipbuilding completions, the world's shipbuilding completion volume in 2021 is 86.02 million dwt. Among them, China's shipbuilding completion volume was 41.64 million dwt, accounting for 48.4%; South Korea's shipbuilding completion volume was 24.4 million dwt, accounting for 28.7%; Japan's shipbuilding completion volume was 16.9 million dwt, accounting for 19.7%. The total shipbuilding completions of China, Japan and South Korea account for 96.8% of the world's shipbuilding completions.
From the perspective of new orders, the world's new orders in 2021 will be 119.85 million dwt. Among them, China's new orders were 62.31 million dwt, accounting for 52%; South Korea's new orders were 40.61 million dwt, accounting for 33.9%; Japan's new orders were 12.83 million dwt, accounting for 10.7%. The total number of new orders received by China, Japan and South Korea accounted for 96.6% of the world's new orders.
From the perspective of handheld orders, the world's handheld orders in 2021 will be 203.6 million dwt. Among them, China's handheld order volume was 97.98 million dwt, accounting for 48.1%; South Korea's handheld order volume was 67.06 million dwt, accounting for 32.9%; Japan's handheld order volume was 30.86 million dwt, accounting for 15.2%. The total number of handheld orders in China, Japan and South Korea accounted for 96.2% of the world's handheld orders.
Fifth, the development prospect of the global shipbuilding industry
1. The shipbuilding industry ushered in a tide of orders and was in the early stage of the upward cycle
Since 2021, the global ship market has bottomed out and rebounded strongly, there has been a boom that has not been seen in 10 years, orders have shown a concentrated volume trend, the Baltic Dry Bulk Index has exceeded 3,000 points, and the shipbuilding industry has ushered in a rare 10-year wave of orders. In 2019, the shipbuilding sector had a rise, mainly based on the expectation of the merger of north-south ships, but this round in 2021 is different, from a fundamental point of view, the logic of this round of shipbuilding sector rise is not based on the theme investment of one-time speculation, but due to performance changes to bring about a multi-year upward cycle. This is because the shipbuilding industry has had very poor fundamentals in the past 10 years, and the ship capacity has been in a state of extreme surplus 10 years ago. At present, the ship capacity from the extreme surplus to the supply and demand basically tends to balance, with the gradual stabilization of the global economy, the demand for ships will continue to grow steadily.
2. Safety and environmental protection technology is the core hotspot for future development
In terms of greenhouse gas emission reduction, in order to achieve the emission reduction targets of the Paris Agreement, the international shipping industry will gradually adopt low-carbon fuels to replace traditional fossil energy in the future. At present, the international maritime community has continuously proposed alternative fuel technology, offshore new energy (wind energy, solar energy) utilization, the use of ship performance simulation technology to achieve greenhouse gas emission reduction and other technical solutions, these programs will become the next stage of the world shipbuilding industry to carry out the main direction of technology research and development, at the same time, the research and development of new technologies will also be related to the supporting enterprises to put forward new technologies, new products and optimize the new demand for product supply chain.
In terms of preventing pollution at sea, with the introduction of relevant policies in 2020, the application of ballast water treatment programs, exhaust gas desulfurization programs, and the use of low-sulfur oils in ships will continue to become the focus of international attention. Especially from the perspective of installing ballast water, desulfurization and other equipment, the configuration and treatment of equipment are different, the crew's familiarity with equipment operation, and the shipyard's familiarity with the equipment and the installation experience in the design and construction stages will have a certain impact on the later operation, so the market will derive a large number of demands for subsequent maintenance of equipment to meet its effective operation in line with international standards.
3. Insufficient labor may become a new problem in the shipbuilding industry
At present, China, Japan, South Korea and other major shipbuilding countries in the world are facing the problem of labor shortage to varying degrees, which is prominently manifested in the "difficulty of recruiting workers" and "difficulty of retaining people" of shipbuilding enterprises. The reason is, on the one hand, due to the obvious decline in the efficiency of shipbuilding enterprises in recent years compared with before the international financial crisis, the loss of existing senior shipbuilding professionals and skilled technicians is serious; on the other hand, a new generation of young people (including college students) are reluctant to choose the shipbuilding industry due to poor shipbuilding operation environment, large risk factors and high skill requirements.
Judging from the situation of major shipbuilding countries such as Europe, Japan and South Korea, the labor costs of shipbuilding enterprises have risen at a rate of 5% to 10% per year, which is much higher than the improvement rate of production efficiency of shipbuilding enterprises, and the lack of labor will undoubtedly further bring great pressure to shipbuilding companies that are already in thin profits or even losses. Judging from the past experience of Japanese and Korean shipyards, the core of coping with rising labor costs and labor shortages is to improve the production efficiency of shipyards. Therefore, effectively improving the production efficiency of shipyards will continue to become the main starting point for major shipbuilding countries to deal with labor problems in the future, and innovative construction models and processes, extensive application of information tools, and continuous optimization of production design will become an important path for the transformation and upgrading of shipbuilding enterprises.
4. The shipbuilding industry has further strengthened its response to international emergencies
The global outbreak of the novel coronavirus in early 2020 has affected China, Japan, South Korea and major European shipbuilding countries, with a profound impact on the development of the industry. Since most of the new ship orders of the world's major shipping countries are export orders, the spread of the epidemic has led to the operational difficulties of most shipbuilding enterprises, which are highlighted in: First, some overseas orders will be delayed in delivery, affected by the epidemic, backbone shipbuilding enterprises in shipbuilding countries such as China, Japan and South Korea will postpone the resumption of work, or cannot normally promote the original production plan, and some ship delivery dates will be delayed, resulting in the risk of contract performance disputes; second, the equipment supply chain in the upper reaches of the shipbuilding industry chain will be impacted. In particular, the supply time node of some imported marine equipment will be difficult to guarantee, affecting the progress of ship construction; third, the entry and exit of technical personnel has been blocked, and the personnel of some enterprises stationed abroad have also been withdrawn to China, resulting in business negotiations, technical cooperation and ship-related quarantine assessments and other work can not be carried out in an orderly manner, which has a greater impact on the delivery of new ships and the undertaking of orders. In this regard, further improving the ability to respond to international emergencies has also become one of the important tasks for the development of the shipbuilding industry.
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