China leads three shipbuilding indicators for 15th year

China's three major shipbuilding indicators all showed positive trends in 2024, data from China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) revealed on Thursday, marking the 15th consecutive year China has led these indicators globally, said state broadcaster CCTV. 

China's shipbuilding completion volume from January to December 2024 accounted for 55.7 percent of the global total, meaning over half of the ships delivered globally in 2024 were built in China. New orders of China's shipbuilding industry accounted for 74.1 percent of global volume and orders on hand accounted for 63.1 percent.

In terms of ship tonnage, China completed 48.18 million tons of shipbuilding orders, marking a 13.8 percent year-on-year increase. Newly received order volume reached 113.05 million tons, surging 58.8 percent year-on-year, and the order at hand hit 208.72 million tons, up 49.7 percent year-on-year, according to MIIT.

Data from China's General Administration of Customs also showed that in 2024, China exported a total of 5,804 ships, representing a 25.1 percent increase from 2023. The export value amounted to $43.38 billion, up 57.3 percent year-on-year. 

China's shipbuilding industry has been making remarkable breakthroughs in core manufacturing technologies in recent year, Zheng Ping, chief analyst at industry portal chineseport.cn, told the Global Times on Thursday, "from 24,000-TEU-level vessels, to LNG carriers and cruise ships, China now is capable of building nearly all advanced types of ships."

In 2024, China ranked first in new orders for 14 of the 18 mainstream ship types globally such as multi-purpose vessels, auto carriers, and container ships, CCTV reported. 

In addition to shifting from quantity to quality in shipbuilding, China is also at the forefront of adopting advanced technologies like green ship fuels and intelligent ship operation systems, Zheng noted.

China's new shipbuilding orders for green power vessels have been steadily increasing their share in the global market, rising from 31.5 percent in 2021 to 78.5 percent in 2024, CCTV reported, and some shipbuilding companies have made technological reserves in green fuel areas such as LNG, hydrogen and ammonia, positioning themselves to secure orders promptly. 

Ships are representative products of the manufacturing sector, as they integrate industries such as steel, machinery manufacturing, electronics, and information technology, showcasing China's continuous manufacturing transformation and upgrade, Cong Yi, a professor at the Tianjin School of Administration, told the Global Times on Thursday.

China on Wednesday completed the main structure of its second domestically built large cruise ship, Adora Flora City, in Shanghai, Xinhua News Agency reported. The construction of the cruise ship took less than nine months, over two months faster than the first ship, Adora Magic City, placing its timeline on par with Europe's leading cruise shipbuilders, said the shipbuilder.