By Choi Sung-jin
Korean shipyards' order receipts hit their lowest in six years last month, industry sources said.
According to Clarkson, a British firm that analyzes the shipping and shipbuilding industries, order receipts stood at 79,834 CGT (compensated gross tonnage) for three vessels in November, the lowest since September 2009 when the shipyards received no orders.
Their share of orders placed worldwide remained at 4.4 percent. In comparison, Chinese shipyards received 1.46 million CGT of orders last month alone, taking a whopping 80 percent of the global market.
Korea's order receipts in the first 11 months slightly edged China's, by 9.92 million CGT to 8.82 million CGT. The global backlog of orders totaled 173.1 million CGT, down 830,000 CGT. China topped the list in this category, too, with 39.64 million CGT, followed by Korea with 31.12 million CGT and Japan with 20.93 million CGT.
"The fall in Korea's order receipts is in part due to our strategic shift from absolute volume to profitability," an industry official said.