South Korea's Ministry of Knowledge Economy (MKE) is to promote offshore plant industry based on the nation's World No.1 shipbuilding industry.
MKE reported 'Development measures for offshore plant industry' on May 9, during the 121st economic contingency meeting, under the supervision of President Lee Myung-Bak.
According to the plans, MKE aims to treble order intake for offshore plant to $80bn by 2020 from $25.7bn in 2011. Also, it targets to enhance localization rate of engineering or related equipment to 60% by 2020, which remained at 40% last year.
As for major measures, they include to enhance competitiveness of domestic equipment, to secure engineering competency through training skilled manpower, to create offshore-plant industrial cluster, etc.
President Lee said, "Proportion of offshore plant is getting bigger in shipbuilding industry, it is a global trend. Offshore plant should be developed and go together with shipbuilding."
Since offshore plant market is expected to rapidly grow to $320bn in 2020 from $140bn in 2010, MKE plans to foster offshore plant industry.
In 2011, Korean companies recorded $25.7bn of sales in offshore plant sector, which exceeds $24.9bn from commercial ship sector. Therefore, larger shipyards plan to focus more on offshore plant.
However, Korea's equipment localization rate remains only at 20%. Having no oil and gas fields, Korean shipyards have not made into subsea market despite of their capabilities for floating offshore-plant construction.