Niche markets under threat

摘要

This year's study of Western European shipbuilding activity by Solutions retains the format of our 2012 analysis and excludes Germany and Norway, which were studied in earlier reports (see Solutions February and May 2013 respectively). Similar to last year, orders for new ships remain thin on the ground while the future of a number of yards is under threat. Analysis of IHS Fairplay data confirms this negative assessment with total 2012 merchant shipbuilding production in gross tonnage (gt) terms having dropped by 15 to 980,000gt over 2 011. Looking further back, aggregate 2012 production represented only a third of output produced just five years ago.