General

In 2022, China's shipbuilding industry will maintain a steady development trend, the international market share of the three shipbuilding indicators will continue to lead, and the benefits of shipbuilding enterprises will continue to improve. According to customs data, in November 2022, China exported 365 ships, up 3.7% year on year; 4743 ships will be exported in the first 11 months of 2022, up 7.8% year on year. In 2023, the continued popularity of the global ship market will strongly support China's ship exports.

Recently, Tan Naifen, Deputy Secretary General of China Shipbuilding Industry Association, said that during the "Fourteenth Five Year Plan" period, the global new shipbuilding market will continue to recover from the Soviet Union.

In 2022, the global new shipbuilding market will show a moderate recovery trend, but affected by the high base of the previous year, the global orders for new ships will decline significantly year on year. According to customs data, in the first 11 months, 74.54 million deadweight tons of new orders were received globally, down 37.6% year on year, but still higher than the average annual level of 66 million deadweight tons during the 13th Five Year Plan period. With the substantial growth of new ship orders, the prices of major new ships also rose. According to customs data, at the end of November 2022, Clarksson's new ship price composite index reached 162 points, up 29.6% from the beginning of 2020 and 5.4% from the beginning of 2022.

Data from China Shipbuilding Industry Association shows that in the first 11 months of 2022, China completed 28.38 million deadweight tons of export ships, a year-on-year decrease of 15.0%; 35.45 million deadweight tons of export ship orders were received, down 37.9% year on year; At the end of November, the orders for handheld export ships were 92.42 million deadweight tons, up 7.9% year on year. Exported ships accounted for 83.7%, 89.5% and 89.2% of the total shipbuilding completion, new orders and hand orders respectively. At the same time, the international market share of the three major indicators of China's shipbuilding industry has kept ahead. According to customs data, in the first 11 months, China's shipbuilding completion, new orders, and hand-held orders accounted for 45.5%, 53.1%, and 48.5% of the world market shares respectively.

In 2022, the income of China's shipbuilding enterprises above designated size will increase and the profits will rise; The amount of ship exports decreased slightly; The international market share continues to lead, and the proportion of high-end ship types continues to increase; The new ship market continued to be active, and the profitability of ship enterprises continued to improve.

Tan Naifen believes that the new demand for global ships will mainly come from two aspects. On the one hand, it is the renewal demand brought by green change. A large number of ships built in the first decade of the new century have entered the updating stage, especially under the requirements of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) on the shipping industry's greenhouse gas emission reduction strategy and the rules of the Ballast Water Convention and the Sulfur Emission Convention, the pace of global ship updating may be further accelerated. On the other hand, the new global demand brought about by the new situation, including the new demand for LNG ships brought about by geopolitical conflicts, the new demand for automobile ships brought about by the export of electric vehicles, and the new demand for container ships brought about by the obvious improvement of ship owners' benefits.

Tan Naifen also cautioned that adverse factors such as anti globalization and geopolitics may cause large fluctuations in the volume and price of new ships during the recovery of new shipbuilding. And the competition between China and South Korea will be more intense. Since 2015, as the competitiveness of Japan's new ship market has gradually declined, the pattern of China and South Korea competing for hegemony has gradually emerged. According to customs data, in the first 11 months of 2022, the global share of new ship orders of China and South Korea has reached 84.3%.

In terms of ship type segmentation, in 2021, the global new shipbuilding market will be mainly driven by container ships. In 2022, the locomotive of the new shipbuilding market will become gas ships (mainly large LNG ships), automobile ships and container ships. According to the revised gross tonnage, 37.8% of the global gas ship orders and 30.1% of the container ship orders accounted for.

"The rhythm of this round of market recovery is dynamic development, and bulk carriers and oil tankers are likely to lead the market demand in the next two years." Tan Naifen believes that the global new shipbuilding market during the "Fourteenth Five Year Plan" period will show a balanced development trend. Taking into account the possible market fluctuations of the subdivided ship types, it is estimated that China's shipbuilding industry will undertake 45 million to 50 million dwt new shipbuilding orders annually, and the global market share will remain above 40%. Therefore, the demand for ship steel will maintain a rapid growth.