Amid depressed shipbuilding market in the first half of the year, China's ship trading maintains to increase.
The general administration of Customs of China reported that China's ship trading during the first six months of 2012 totalled $22.17bn, up by 2.3% year-on-year - ship export increased by 2.2% to $21.07bn and import rose by 7.5% to $1.1bn.
In June alone, export stood at $4.33bn, up by around $900m month-on-month and by 22.5% year-on-year.
Chinese shipyards have mostly exported commercial ship, totalling $16.01bn, which accounted for 76% of overall export.
Ships exported more than $1bn are bulker below 150,000 dwt ($8.54bn, up 4.1% year-on-year), 150,000-30,000 dwt bulker ($3.69bn, up 23.8%), boxship under 6,000 teu ($1.31bn, up 81.8%), semi-submersible drillship and floating production platform ($1.12bn, up 15%) and multi-purpose vessel ($1.11bn, up 8.9%).
China has exported to a total of 158 countries and areas, of them Asia was the largest market, overall $11.53bn of ships exported, up by 13.9% in value terms.
However, exports to Europe or North America plummeted. Particularly, $3.59bn were exported to the second biggest