The future has come, and the shipbuilding industry has entered a new round of rapid development

Since the beginning of the new century, China's shipbuilding industry has seized the major opportunities of China's rapid economic growth and the periodic prosperity of the international shipbuilding market, forged ahead and cut through difficulties, and achieved the historic leap of the first shipbuilding country.

Since the financial crisis, China's shipbuilding industry has resisted the continuous deep adjustment of the market and the cyclical crisis of the industry, washed more leather, buried in hard work, and achieved the structural clearance of the shipbuilding industry capacity and the high-end upgrade of the product structure.

Since the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China's shipbuilding industry has closely focused on the main line of high-quality development, inch by inch and get ready for battle, initially established a green and intelligent production mode and product system, consolidated the comprehensive advantages of China's shipbuilding industry in international industrial competition, and is climbing to a new peak.

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, in the horn of a new journey to comprehensively build a modern socialist country, we are pleased to see that China's shipbuilding industry has entered a new round of rapid development stage and ushered in a new historic development opportunity.

First, the world shipbuilding industry has opened a new round of industrial cycle

The international ship market is characterized by periodicity, and the factors affecting its periodicity are many and complex. The cyclical fluctuation of the world economy is an important external factor affecting the cycle of the ship market. The renewal and reinvestment cycle of ships of around 25 years is the main intrinsic factor.

Looking at the century-old history of the global shipbuilding industry, the excessive prosperity or depression of the world economy, the great changes in international maritime rules, large-scale wars and other factors will lengthen or shorten the ship market cycle. This is also the main reason for the confusing length of the ship market cycles over the past 100 years. The destruction of ship assets in the Second World War resulted in a new shipbuilding market cycle of less than 15 years; The single-hull tanker phase-out Convention adopted by IMO in 2003 and the rapid economic development of China are superimposed, which will extend the cycle of the new shipbuilding market to more than 30 years.

Since the financial crisis, the shipping and new shipbuilding markets have experienced more than 10 years of adjustment, the time span is close to half a full cycle. Today, a new round of new shipbuilding market upcycle has quietly opened.

First, the global shipping market capacity clearance has basically ended.

In the past ten years, the major ship types have gone through 1-2 rounds of large-scale capacity dismantling and large-scale bankruptcy reorganization of shipowners, the fleet growth rate has declined for seven consecutive years, and began to rebound in 2019, and the significant correction of sea traffic in 2020 has not only not formed a huge blow to the shipping industry, but has led to a significant rebound in global sea traffic and a substantial increase in freight in 2021. The BDI index, which reflects the ups and downs of the shipping market, broke through a decade-long pressure point of 3,000 points, indicating that the shipping market has emerged from the quagmire of excess capacity.

Second, the new shipbuilding market has clearly bottomed out.

At the beginning of the new century, the global shipping volume was about 6.5 billion tons, corresponding to about 50 million deadweight tons of new ships. At present, the world's maritime traffic has reached 12 billion tons, and under normal circumstances, the volume of new ships corresponding to this volume is about 90 million deadweight tons.

In the market capacity clearance stage, the volume of new shipbuilding market in 2016 was only 30 million deadweight tons; In 2017-2018, it basically recovered to the normal level of 90 million deadweight tons; Even in 2020, when the epidemic situation was the most severe and the market outlook was the most bleak, new ship transactions still reached 60 million DWT.

This shows that the new shipbuilding market has bottomed out in 2016, suffered a brief correction in 2020, and if there are no major adverse factors in the future, the annual new ship turnover can remain above 90 million deadweight tons.

Third, the international maritime Convention will accelerate the recovery of the new ship market.

In recent years, IMO legislation on environmental protection has gradually accelerated, and relevant conventions such as ballast water and sulfur discharge have come into force one after another. Under the framework of the greenhouse gas emission reduction strategy, more new requirements such as EEXI and CII will be introduced one after another.

In 2023, EEXI and CII will be officially implemented, and the final installation deadline of ballast water treatment system is September 2024, old ships need to install a variety of devices, but it is difficult to recover the investment and choose to replace; Mid-age ships need to reduce the power and speed of the main engine, thereby reducing the market capacity. New ships are rapidly shifting to alternative energy.