Orders for new vessels put China's shipbuilders on robust growth path

An employee works at the factory of China State Shipbuilding Corporation Shipbuilding Co, Ltd in North China's Tianjin, June 21, 2023. China's shipbuilding industry will likely maintain robust growth this year, driven by soaring demand for dual fuel-powered containerships, oil tankers and specialized vessels, market watchers and business executives said on Monday. In the first five months of this year, orders for new vessels placed with the country's shipyards surged 49.5 percent year-on-year, data from the Beijing-based China Association of the National Shipbuilding Industry showed. In recent months, Chinese shipyards have received new orders for not only containerships and bulk vessels but liquefied natural gas carriers, vehicle carriers and ocean engineering vessels, said Li Yanqing, secretary-general of CANSI. A subsidiary of Shenzhen, Guangdong province-headquartered China International Marine Containers Co Ltd, CIMC Sinopacific has received orders for eight new ships — two dual-fuel containerships, two medium gas carriers and four dual-fuel bulk carriers, with a total order value exceeding 1.7 billion yuan — over the past several weeks.