During the past two years around 90 Chinese shipyards ran out of work, Clarksons reveals.
Only 153 shipyards in China were considered still active at the end of 2012, down from a figure of 243 two years ago.
Last year Chinese yards received approval to build just 420 ships, much less than 1,284 in 2010.
Clarksons calculated 149 Chinese shipyards received new orders in 2010 but the figure plummeted to 69 in 2012.
At the start of 2013 Chinese yards had 1,832 vessels totalling 109.4m DWT on their orderbook, down 47.3% on two years ago.