China’s Shipbuilding Tonnage Up 30 Per Cent in 2007

Text of report in English by official Chinese news agency Xinhua (New China News Agency)

["China's Shipbuilding Tonnage up 30 Pct in 2007" - Xinhua headline]

Beijing, March 1 (Xinhua) – China’s shipbuilding tonnage jumped 30 per cent to 18.93m tons last year, the country’s top economic planning agency said Saturday.

China, the world’s third-largest shipbuilder after the Republic of Korea and Japan, grabbed 23 per cent of the world’s market share, four percentage points higher than in 2006.

Among the total, 14.9m tons of ships in tonnage were exported to 151 countries and regions, according to the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).

The number of exported tonnage rose 25.6 per cent and the export value rose 51.1 per cent to 12.24bn US dollars.

The country’s new shipbuilding orders in tonnage soared 132 per cent to 98.45m tons last year. The figure accounted for 42 per cent of the world’s total, up 12 percentage points from a year earlier.

The new amount raised the total orders in tonnage the country held to 158.89m tons, 33 per cent of the world’s figure. The market share was nine percentage points higher than in 2006.

During the year, China State Shipbuilding Corp. (CSSC) and China Shipbuilding Industry Corp. (CSIC) built 6.55m tons and 4.24m tons of ships in tonnage, respectively.

The CSSC and CSIC received 23.52m tons and 16.16m tons of new shipbuilding orders in tonnage, respectively, last year. The two state-owned shipbuilding giants each had at hands 50m and 26ms of total orders in tonnage.

Originally published by Xinhua news agency, Beijing, in English 1437 1 Mar 08.

(c) 2008 BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.