In August, Korean shipyards clinched combined orders of 630,000 paid gross tonnage (CGT), or 23 vessels, according to British shipbuilding and marine industry tracker Clarkson Research Services, on Tuesday. At 860,000 CGT with 36 ships, their orders accounted for 73 per cent of global orders.

It is the second straight month for world-based Korean shipbuilders to rank top in the world.

By taking 24 per cent of global shipbuilding orders, or 210,000 CGT with 12 vessels, China came second in August.

The strength of the Korean shipbuilders comes as global ship demands have dramatically shrunk because of the COVID-19 pandemic impacts. Global shipbuilding orders tally at 8.12 million CGT from January to August this year, down 54 per cent from the same period last year.

At the end of August, the global order backlog stood at CGT 69.19 million, down 1 per cent from a month earlier.

In the order backlog, Japanese shipyards saw the sharpest contraction with a 34 percent fall year-on-year, followed by Chinese with 11 percent and Korean with 10 percent.

Chinese shipyards have the largest 25.47 million CGT order backlog, comprising 37 percent of global backlog. The second largest of Korean names is 19.15 million CGT, or 28 percent of the total.

Maritime Business World