South Korea beat out China for July shipbuilding orders

AUGUST 9, 2017 — Yonhap news agency reports that South Korean shipyards recaptured the No. 1 position in new orders worldwide in July, outpacing Chinese rivals, as overall order numbers plunged.

Yonhap says Clarkson Research data shows that South Korean shipbuilding companies clinched new orders for nine ships with a combined 306,000 compensated gross tonnage. Though China won orders for 13 ships, they aggregated only 295,000 CGT

Globally, new ship orders totaled 869,000 CGT (29 ships) in July, or 46 percent of the 1.89 million CGTs (66 vessels) recorded for the previous month, says Yonhap.

As of end-July, the world’s total order backlog came in at 74.69 million CGTs, down from 76.09 million CGTs a month earlier. China held the largest order backlog of 25.87 million CGTs, followed by South Korea with 16.47 million CGT and Japan with 16.24 CGT.