IMC had recently conducted a questionnaire survey about the conditions of Chinese shipyards among 25 Asian strong shipowners. Hong Kong and Singapore shipowners manage about 20% of the cargo ships worldwide and the questionnaire result is supposed to be close to the actual situation.
Chinese shipyards are facing unprecedented challenges with global economy slowdown and increasing labor costs. Insiders point out Chinese shipbuilding industry has been strong but still has a long way to go to be No. 1.
The questionnaire result shows that Chinese shipyards still lag behind in shipbuilding quality, price and services, which are the priorities in placing new orders.
According to the survey, quality is the first factor for a shipowenr to choose a shipbuilder, then comes price and payment terms. Most shipowners expect Chinese newbuilding price to be 10%-15% lower than Japanese similar products and 5%-10% lower than Korean’s according to the quality. Shipowners also pay high attention to ship speed, oil consumption and resale price in choosing the builder.
In recent years, more and more speculative orders appear in the market and increase the risks of volatile ship price, poor newbuilding quality and vicious competition.
The statistics show 47% shipowners think the quality of Chinese shipyard are much lower than Japanese shipbuilders and most believe it’s lower than Korean shipyards.
Shipyards should avoid low-margin competition and win new orders by distinguished product features and complete quality management system. Many domestic shipyards are now confronted with ineffective quality management system and inadequate technology human resources.
Global shipowners, especially European shipowners, generally praise highly the design from Japan shipyards. Their marks for Chinese green ship design and equipments are miserably low (average 3-4 with full mark 10), which reveals their disadvantages in shipbuilding quality and design.
Some shipowers put forward that Chinese ship design mostly ignore the potential technical and operational requirements of further shipping market. Most domestic ship design institutions are unwillingly to make efforts in deep-going newbuilding research and improvement despite of rich experiences and adequate capabilities.
Besides, the communications among Chinese shipyards, shipowners and designers are not effective enough. Shipowenrs’ rich experiences in ship management and operation are of great help to impeccable design. If shipyards and ship designers spend more time and resources in communications with shipowners especially on ship operation after delivery, its design and building capacity would be greatly enhanced.
Besides, many shipowner complain about the outsourcing system of Chinese shipyards in the report. The system aims to reduce cost and control human resources for the company, but in fact many subcontractors choose to outsource the outsourcing projects for more profits. Over-subcontracting further corrodes the construction level and equipments quality.
In recent years, Chinese shipyards have enhanced its after-sale service domestically. However, the relevant services overseas still not enough for its worldwide product distribution chain. Many ships can only be maintained in China. Shipowners recommend that Chinese shipyards learn from Korean Hyundai Motors’ experience of entering into North American market and set up more complete service network to ensure competitiveness and market share.