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Shipbuilders in consolidation mode

By Tong Hao (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-02-16 07:57

Workers take a rest after fi nishing a freight vessel at a dockyard in South China. [Asianewsphoto]

China's shipbuilding industry, which last year suffered its steepest annual decline since 2003, is likely to be squeezed further this year by shrinking order books and order cancellations as the global economy remains in recession.

The industry, the world's second-largest by capacity, will see more small shipyards swallowed by big players as mergers and acquisitions are expected to pick up pace this year, analysts said.

Related readings:  China shipbuilder expects to enter world top 500  Leading shipbuilder expects to enter world top 500  Top shipbuilder rolls in money  Shipbuilder's revenue up 26% in 2008

Chinese shipyards saw their orders plunge 40.9 percent year-on-year in 2008 to 58.18 million deadweight tons (dwt), against an average global fall of 43.2 percent, according to market research company Clarkson Research Services.

Shipyards worldwide will see orders further plunge to 40 to 60 million dwt in 2009, while the new orders Chinese shipyards receive is likely to drop to 20 million to 30 million dwt, a 48.4 percent to 65.6 percent fall form a year earlier, the China Association of the National Shipbuilding Industry said in its latest report.

Besides, an analyst Ye Zhigang with Haitong Securities said in a report that 15 to 25 percent of Chinese yards' orders, or 300 million to 500 million dwt, are likely to be canceled over the next three years, five percentage points higher than the global average.

The industry will remain in depression during the next three years and another period of growth will come after 2013, Ye estimated.

The State Council, or the Cabinet, on Feb 11 approved a stimulus package for the country's shipbuilding industry, after similar plans for the auto, steel and textile industries. The stimulus package includes support in financial credit and technology upgrades, new capacity control as well as encouragement of mergers and acquisitions within the industry.

"The package comes as a boost to a sector that has been struggling for new orders and in retaining old ones," said Guo Yalin, an analyst with CITIC Securities.

Large shipyards are more likely to survive over the next three years, but life for small ones will be hard, analysts said.

"Large State-owned shipyards in China have better capacity to tackle the difficulties," said a PingAn Securities analyst who declined to be named. "Compared to small private shipyards, they have higher skills and their clients are of better quality."

China State Shipbuilding Co Ltd (CSSC), one of the country's largest shipbuilders, is now considering offering discounts to its clients to avoid order cancellation, said Shi Weidong, board secretary of CSSC. The company has given top priority to vessel delivery and winning new orders this year.

The company, which forecast a profit of 10 billion yuan for 2008, has 52.77 million dwt in shipbuilding orders, accounting for 8.8 percent of the world's total, enough to see it through the next few years.

But "for small- and medium-sized private shipbuilders in China, the situation is serious," said the Pingan Securities analyst.

"Building ships requires a huge amount of money. Compared to State-owned yards, they are less likely to get money from banks and their orders are more likely to be canceled due to lack of experience."

According to statistics from the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense in 2006, there were 3,050 shipyards in China, with most being privately owned.

The fragmented industrial pattern will see changes as the world's economic climate worsens, analysts said.

"The number of shipyards in China is sure to decrease over the next few years," said Zhang Jincan, an analyst at Guotai Jun'an Securities.

"Some small private yards will go bankrupt, while more mergers and acquisitions will take place, but is hard to predict the scale of this."

Such a trend echoes China's long-term plan for the shipbuilding industry from 2006 to 2015, which advocates efficiency improvements through mergers and acquisitions and aims to build three consolidated shipbuilding bases in the Bohai Bay region, the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta.

"The traditional advantage of China's shipyards is building bulk freighters. However, I think they should aim to build more oil tankers, container vessels and ships with higher added value in the long term," said analyst Zhang.

Clarkson said China received 50.5 percent of the total bulk freighter orders worldwide by September 18, 2008. And among the new orders Chinese shipyards received in 2008, 66 percent were bulk freighters while oil tankers and container vessels accounted for 18 percent and 9 percent respectively, according to Changjiang Securities Co Ltd.

Therefore, "Chinese shipyards should try to invest more in research and development. At present, China still cannot build some type of ships or lags behind developed techniques such as those of South Korea and Japan," said Zhang.