Yards adapt to survive

摘要

Despite unstinting competition from the Far East, Germany's shipyards continue to hold their own, having moved from large-scale ship construction to small-scale, highly complex engineering work. 'We are quite satisfied with our orderbook, which has increased a little bit,' says Gerhard Carlsson, market analyst with Germany's Shipbuilding and Ocean Industries Association VSM (Verband fur Schiffbau und Meerestechnik) - which currently boasts 135 members compared to 115 at the end of 2012.