Shipbuilding industry is a heavy industry undertaking the design, construction, maintenance and testing of various military and civil ships and producing the ancillary equipment.
Since 2012, under the environment of slowdown in the growth of global economy and trade, the shipping market is continuously in depression, and the development of China's shipbuilding industry faces huge challenges. From January to September in 2012, the completion volume of China's shipbuilding was 41.58 million deadweight tons, with a decline of 18.5% YOY. The volume of new ship orders was 15.41 million deadweight tons, with a decline of 46.9% YOY. By the end of September 2012, the volume of reserve ship orders of China's shipbuilding enterprises was 120.9 million deadweight tons, with a decrease of 28.4% YOY, falling by 19.4% over the end of 2011. From January to September in 2012, the completed ship export were 34.34 million deadweight tons, with a decrease of 20.2% YOY; the order volume of ship export was 12 million deadweight tons, with a decrease of 44.5% YOY; at the end of September 2012, the reserve orders of export ships of China's shipbuilding enterprises were 101.19 million deadweight tons, with a decrease of 27% YOY. The export ships separately accounted for 82.6%, 77.9% and 83.7% of completion volume, new order volume and reserve order volume of China's shipbuilding.
In April 2012, China's Ministry of Industry issued the Notice on Further Strengthening the M&A of Enterprises, putting forward to promote the advantageous enterprises to implement combination of the strong, trans-regional M&A, overseas M&A and investment cooperation, in order to raise industrial concentration rate. It also listed the shipbuilding industry as one of the key industries. In the integration process of China's shipbuilding industry, some enterprises with excellent operation performance are expected to ultimately survive. In addition, some shipbuilding enterprises focusing on market segments and specializing in characteristic production will also survive.