Japanese shipbuilders won a total of 22 ship export orders in April but the new flow of orders may not be enough to reverse the decline in the country’s export ship orderbook.
According to statistics from the Japan Ship Exporters’ Association, Japanese shipyards received a total of 22 new orders in April amounting to 910,142 gt. 
This was down from the 25 vessels ordered in March but up from the 20 ordered in April 2010.
In the first four months of this year, Japanese yards won export orders for a total of 87 vessels, up from 54 in the comparative last year.
The ships included four pure car carriers, three coal carriers, four handysizes, eight handymaxes, two panamaxes and one capesize bulk carrier.
Just under a third of the vessels are scheduled for delivery by the end of March 2012 with the remainder slated for delivery in subsequent years.
29 newbuildings of 1.28m gt made it through customs last month, falling 20% year-on-year for the second consecutive month.
6.4m gt of completed ships have cleared customs by April this year, down 11% against the same period of last year.
As of the end of April 2011, Japanese shipyard’s export ship orderbook stood at 945 vessels amounting to 44m gt. That is down considerably compared with the end of April last year, when shipbuilders had 1,036 orders on their books totalling 50.7m gt.