Although newbuilding contract for May of the year has sharply increased by over 100% comparing to a previous month, due to shipyards' low-price offer for survivals, newbuilding price turns out to have plunged to the bottom since March 2004.
In a report from Clarkson Research on June 19, a cumulative of 3.9m dwt (77 vessels) were contracted in May, which more than doubles 1.8m dwt (58) ordered in April, 2012. 
A notable increase in contract seems to have been caused by shipbuilders' low-price offers, as only an estimated $2.6bn was invested, comparing with $3.8bn in previous month. Particularly, contracts for 1.7m dwt panamax bulkers (23) were placed in May.
During the first five months of this year, a combined of 16.5m dwt (373 vessels) totalling $22.3bn have been ordered, which represents a year-on-year decrease of 47% when annualized. However, an estimated value of 3bn (70) have been invested in tanker sector, up by 14% year-on-year. The majority of tanker investment has been in the MR product carriers.
In the first five months, China contracted overall 6.5m dwt, followed by South Korea and Japan, which booked 5.7m dwt and 3.7m dwt each. In terms of CGT, Korea ranks the top with 2.8m cgt, while China and Japan inked orders of a combined of 2.1m cgt and 0.8m cgt, respectively, which all have seen decreases by around 50% y-o-y.
Amid stagnant commercial ship market, during January-May period, Korea bagged orders for 31 gas carriers (14 LNG carriers and 17 LPG carriers) and 31 tankers, of which MR PC accounting for 22 vessels. In case of Japan, a cumulative of 2.7m dwt bulkers (30 vessels) were contracted and three VLCCs were ordered last month, for the first time in recent 20 months.
Due to market depression, Clarkson newbuilding price index stood at 133.8 points at the end of May, down by 5.1p on the end of 2011 and by 0.4p on April, having reached the lowest point since March 2004. With containership benchmark newbuilding prices having continued to drop year to date, only nine boxships (most of them under 2,200 teu) have been ordered in the first five months, compared to 140 vessels in the same period last month.