If you have to fight with China, the South Korean shipbuilding industry is comfortable now, and finally rolled itself to death.
The recent mass resignation of the leadership of South Korea's National Intelligence Service has put Yoon under pressure, while South Korea's tensions with China and economic pressures from the United States have exacerbated Yoon's predicament. As 2023 comes to an end, there is more unfavorable news from the Korean industry.
According to South Korea's "World**", South Korea's shipbuilding industry lagged behind China for the third consecutive year, and the annual order volume only remained the second in the world. South Korea has shown obvious dissatisfaction with this, believing that this is "South Korea's number one position in the world has been taken away by China three times in a row".
According to the data, as of the end of November, the data released by the global shipbuilding and shipping dynamic analysis agency "Clarkson" showed that due to the impact of the global economic crisis, the global new ship orders decreased by 21% to 30.83 million revised gross tons. South Korea's new orders fell 39% year-on-year to 9.55 million revised gross tonnes, while China's decline was only 6% to 21.89 million revised gross tonnes. In the context of the overall decline of the global shipbuilding industry, China's shipbuilding industry has bucked the trend.
South Korea** and the public found it difficult to accept this result, and criticized ** and social problems, blaming it on the decline of technology and human resources. But in fact, in July last year, South Korean shipbuilding giant Daewoo Shipyard was forced to ** LNG business due to high debt ratio, heralding the decline of South Korea's shipbuilding industry. To a large extent, this is due to South Korea's own tactical problems and lack of resistance to the external environment.
On the issue of strategy, South Korea's attitude towards China in the field of shipbuilding is too arrogant, believing that it can suppress the development of China's shipbuilding industry with its capital, market and technological advantages. Therefore, South Korea has chosen involution competition and engaged in a ** war with China. At the same time, however, China has gradually increased its military orders and technological transformation during this decade, and its involution competition has had limited impact.
The shipbuilding industry has a long cycle, and most of the related costs are borne by the shipyard or solved through loans. From 2021 to 2023, South Korea's shipbuilding industry is particularly vulnerable to global economic challenges (such as the Sino-US war, the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and domestic inflation in the United States). Especially against the backdrop of dollar loans, successive interest rate hikes in the United States have exacerbated the financial pressure on South Korea's shipbuilding industry, while China has alleviated the pressure through interest rate cuts.
This combination of internal and external dilemmas has plunged the Korean shipbuilding industry into a deep crisis. Although South Korea tried to gain a market advantage through involution competition, it ultimately suffered a major setback due to its own strategic problems and fragile response to the external environment.