Building a future

摘要

The economic and financial crisis has put an end to the boom in global shipping and shipbuilding markets and still affects competitors in South and North Asia. Large over-capacity in many segments of the fleet has led to low freight rates and decreasing ship prices. As a result the maritime technology industry is seeing declining profitability on many new building projects. A massive decline in completions began in 2011 and continues to this day. Also notable is a decline in workforce at the shipyards. Japan, for example, has seen a decline in its shipyard workforce from 54,000 to 44,000 between 2009 and 2014, a decline of almost 20%. After a good year 2013 new orders globally declined again in 2014 from 103.2 million GT to 82.6 million GT, leaving little hope for improvement in 2015. This data was sourced from the Japanese Shipbuilders Association and their report published in March 2015, as well as from IHS Fairplay statistics.