Korea’s shipbuilding order intake surpassed China’s for the first time in three years in the first quarter of 2024.

The Korean Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) announced that shipbuilding orders in the first quarter of this year totaled US$13.6 billion, surpassing China’s US$12.6 billion. It was the first time in more than three years since the fourth quarter of 2021 that South Korea topped the ship order rankings on a quarterly basis. The Korean shipbuilding industry accounted for 44.7 percent of the world’s ship orders during this period.

Compared to last year’s ship orders of US$22.9 billion to Korean shipbuilders, the figure is equivalent to 45.5 percent. In terms of tonnage, 4.49 million compensated gross tonnage (CGT) was slightly less than China’s 4.9 million CGT, but it surpassed that of China in terms of monetary value as orders were centered on eco-friendly, high-value-added ships. It is an indicator of the amount of work that is necessary to build a given ship and is calculated by multiplying the tonnage of a ship by a coefficient, which is determined according to the type and size of a particular ship.

Of these orders, March orders totaled 1.05 million CGT, more than China’s 730,000 CGT. Korea’s ship exports showed year-on-year growth for eight consecutive months since July of 2023.

To achieve its US$700 billion export target this year, the MOTIE will prepare a road map for the development of advanced shipbuilding technology that can help Korean shipbuilders widen their technological gaps with their Chinese counterparts in the first half of this year and measures to boost the competitiveness of small and medium-sized shipyards and increase the export competitiveness of the Korean shipbuilding equipment industry in the second half. For new technological items in the shipbuilding sector such as those for eco-friendly and autonomous ships, the ministry plans to actively utilize regulatory sandboxes to foster them as key export items and help the Korean shipbuilding industry to lead the global shipbuilding market in the future.

Source: Business Korea