With the center of global shipbuilding and marine industry moving on to high value vessels and offshore plants, Korea has been followed immediately by its competitor, China, that there is a need to strengthen its competitiveness for the industry.
Cho Sang-Rae, chairman at The Society of Naval Architects of Korea, has said that “China has started to construct high value vessels, which are technically complicated to built, and major Chinese yards have established subsidiaries to reinforce their offshore division”, at a ‘Seminar on Policy Development for Korean Shipbuilding and Marine Industry’ on February 21.
Chinese shipbuilding industry is said to have recently started constructing the ultra-large containerships, LNG carriers and offshore plants, and been awarded high value vessels and offshore plants from domestic customers that it now seems to be building up its experience and track record. Also, it beefs up its technology capability through efforts of operating an R&D center at each yard and having 3,000 annual numbers of human resources those who are in shipbuilding and marine engineering major.
Cho prospected that global offshore plant market will outgrow the shipbuilding segment from now on and is expected to achieve KRW 500trn ($460bn) in 2030, with expanding trend of deep-sea oil and gas field development.
He also stressed that “we need to set up realistic strategies on offshore plant industry which is a rising growth engine” and added that “National projects are needed to be expanded for developing engineering skills & equipment and training human resources as well as obtaining orders for ‘test bed’ of offshore plant from domestic customers.”
Moreover, he suggested that “we need to diversify technology bases to pioneer new market such as offshore plant and ice breaking vessel, aiming for North Pole Route and the North Sea, and floating wind power facility, wind power complex and offshore structures, targeting marine renewable energy development.