As global shipping industry see growing deficits, which has caused serious damage to the shipbuilding industry, several institutes and associations, such as the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China (MIIT), are said to have negative lookouts on Chinese shipbuilding industry.

MIIT has announced at the end of January that a total amount of delivery by the Chinese shipbuilding industry in 2012 was 60.21m DWT, showing 21.4% decrease year-on-year, with 20.41m DWT of newbuildings contracted which have fallen by 43.6%. Also, China’s newbuilding orderbook marked 106.95m DWT last December with 28.7% fall compared to a year earlier and of the total, vessels for export turned out to have accounted for 82.7%.

Moreover, China Newbuilding Price Index (CNPI) has been on a steady downward curve since July 1st, 2011 when it made its first announcement of the index. Particularly, dry bulk price index has fallen continuously by 15% from 1,000p and finally recorded 841p on December 30th, 2012.  An official from the company has pointed out that the industry has faced a serious hardship due to a fact that proportion of bulker building takes around 70%.

Meanwhile, Zhang Shou Guo, executive vice chairman of the China Shipowners’ Association, has said that he does not think 2013 will be better than 2012 and the Chinese shipyards will experience even a harder time in 2014. Also, Yangzijiang Shipbuilding’s chairman Ren Yuanlin has expected that this year is a starting point for the shipbuilding industry to face a hardship and thus, it will be difficult to come out of recession for the next five years. Another professional in the industry is said to have forecasted that around 50% of the Chinese shipyards will go into bankruptcy within the next two or three years.