Chinese shipbuilding industry turned out to be still behind Korea in the volume of ship exports in 2012, showing a decrease compared to 2011. According to a data of the general administration of Customs of China, the amount of ship export in China totaled $36.12bn in the full 2012 with a decrease by 13.5% against 2011. Also, an average price per vessel was $13,173 showing a 10.2% drop year-on-year.
During a period from January to December in 2012, Chinese shipbuilders exported overall 2.742m vessels, with a fall of 3.6% against the previous year. It is said that all the other months except February and June which had surprising surges, Chinese ship export showed a decreasing trend, according to monthly statistical data.
When taking types and sizes of vessel into account during the same period, it is said that China experienced a downturn as the exports of its major vessels dropped. Chinese main types of vessel are bulker and tanker, which previously accounted for 69.4% of the total export vessel, however, total value of bulkers and tankers exported fell by 11.3% and 43.4%, respectively, affected by a decrease in the volume of trade by 11.2% point, such as iron ore and crude oil.
Meanwhile, although the shares of containership and Ro-Ro ship took only 8.4% and 2.2%, respectively, they are said to have shown an uptrend in the full 2012.
In 2012, Chinese state-owned companies played a leading role in ship export market and the performance of private corporations also is now rated positively. The ship exports of the state-owned companies amounted to $17.523bn with a 16.9% drop, year-on-year, and this performance accounted for almost half the total amount of exports. Moreover, proportion of foreign-funded enterprises in total export was calculated as 32.8%.
Meanwhile, Korea turned out to have outpaced China, with $39.7bn worth of ships exported in 2012.
According to the Ministry of Knowledge Economy of Korea, the country’s total amount of ship exports in 2012 plummeted by about 30% compared to $56.6bn in the previous year and the proportion of Korea’s total export sharply dropped from 10.2% to 7.2%.
