Shipper to order 9 vessels made in China

Chinese shipbuilders are outperforming their South Korean rivals in constructing high-end mega-containerships after further sharpening their manufacturing edge and grasping a larger share of the global market.

Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding Co confirmed on Tuesday that the company and Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding (Group) Co, another Shanghai-based shipyard, together have received a letter of intent from the French group CMA-CGM SA for nine vessels capable of transporting 22,000 twenty-foot-equivalent-unit containers — the largest carrying capacity in the world.

However, the final order is subject to board approval from both sides.

“The 22,000 TEU-containership will become the world’s largest of its kind once completed, outsizing the current leader, a 21,413TEU containership made in South Korea. It really is an industrial breakthrough of decades,” said Dong Liwan, a shipbuilding industry researcher at Shanghai Maritime University.

Shipbuilders in China received orders for new vessels with a collective capacity of 8.14 million dead weight metric tons in the first half of 2017, accounting for 31.4 percent of the global market. South Korea’s shipbuilding industry held a 30.6 percent share, data from Beijingbased China Association of the National Shipbuilding Industry show.

Dong said it is first time Chinese shipyards have topped their South Korean counterparts in the highvalue-added mega-containership sector, and the shipbuilding industry as a whole.