Time flies, and a recent comprehensive Korean media report by the Global Times pointed out that South Korea's shipbuilding industry is expected to lose the "first" throne for the third consecutive year this year and be taken away by China. The number of orders received throughout the year will generally continue to rank second in the world. This means that "South Korea's No. 1 shipbuilding industry" has been sitting on the throne for the third consecutive year. Impressively, however, South Korea still retains a different kind of confidence in the "No. 1 shipbuilding" crown, which perhaps only the Indians can match.
According to the latest data released by Clarkson, a British professional organization, as of November 2023, the global order volume of new ships has decreased by 21 year-on-year, of which the number of orders received by South Korea has decreased by an astonishing 39 year-on-year, with a total of 201 ships and a revised gross tonnage of 9.55 million. In contrast, China's orders decreased by 6 year-on-year to 995 ships, with a total tonnage of 21.89 million, and it is not surprising that China is expected to once again be the "first in the shipbuilding industry" for the whole year.
The explanation given by the Korean media for the loss of "shipbuilding first" is that due to the surge in orders, South Korean shipbuilders began to screen orders, and are more inclined to high value-added ships and environmentally friendly ships, such as methanol-powered container ships, liquefied carbon dioxide ships, ammonia carriers and other more difficult ship types have also begun to be built. However, with only one month left before the end of the year, only one of South Korea's three major shipbuilders has achieved its target for this year's order takes, while Samsung Heavy Industries and Hanwha Marine have only achieved 69% and 43% of their targets, respectively. Is this a gamble of "not having enough to eat and being picky"?
South Koreans are increasingly worried about their shipbuilding industry. According to data released by Yonhap News Agency, in September alone, China received 82 percent of global bookings, while South Korea received only 6, and the gap is still widening. The main reason is manpower and technical problems, in recent years, the technical level of Chinese shipyards has been soaring, and more and more shipyards can undertake high value-added ships, such as LNG LNG carriers. On the other hand, production capacity in South Korea has declined due to labor shortages and rising labor costs. In 2014, the number of workers in South Korean shipyards was about 200,000, but at the end of last year that number dropped to 950 thousand. Although South Korea has been expanding the scale of foreign labor introduction, it has had little effect.
In stark contrast, China's shipbuilding industry is developing rapidly. China has gathered the "three pearls" of shipbuilding: aircraft carriers, LNG carriers and large cruise ships. The development of aircraft carriers is obvious to all, and China currently has three aircraft carriers, of which the Fujian is completely independently designed by China. Last year, China built more than 55 LNG carriers, a sector that had relatively weak R&D capabilities until 2008. At present, the level of LNG manufacturing by Chinese shipbuilders has been continuously improved, and the construction cycle has been continuously reduced, and remarkable achievements have been made. It is worth mentioning that on November 4 this year, China's first domestically produced large cruise ship "Aida Modu" was officially named and delivered, marking that China has become the fifth country in the world that can build such ships.
In the first half of this year, China's shipbuilding industry ranked first in the world in terms of shipbuilding completions, new orders and hand-held orders. China's strong shipbuilding industry has also provided strong support for the development of China's navy. China's warships have sprung up like mushrooms after a rain, and even surpassed the entire French Navy in terms of annual tonnage. Not only that, but the performance of ships is constantly improving, with new, larger and more advanced combat ships emerging one after another, and improved versions of older types of ships are also being mass-produced. The United States even believes that in the near future, the tonnage of the Chinese Navy is expected to surpass that of the American Navy, therefore, the United States is working on creating an unmanned fleet to counter China.
Overall, the rise of China's shipbuilding industry has not only made remarkable achievements in scale and output, but also the rapid improvement of technical level, which has further driven the development of machinery, metallurgy, electronics and other related industries. China's strong shipbuilding industry has laid a solid foundation for the rise of our navy. Two years ago, when South Korea's shipbuilding industry was first overtaken by China, they may have ridiculed us for our "small profits but quick turnover", believing that we had achieved a numerical advantage by relying on low-margin, low-tech ships such as bulk carriers and container ships. However, they may not be able to laugh anymore, because we can build the ships they can, faster, better, and cheaper. This inevitably makes people feel a little emotional, perhaps this is the international status of the country, and a world power will return to its true historical status sooner or later.