Tougher times for Norwegian shipyards

Norwegian shipyards last year experienced their worst year, with orders worth only NOK 1.3 billion. This is a drop of nearly 90 per cent since the top years of 2005 and 2006, Aftenposten reports. In the top years, the Norwegian yards received orders worth up to NOK 17-18 billion a year, the paper writes.
At present, only a few of the 25 Norwegian yards have orders lasting into 2011.
Most of the contracts at Norwegian yards have been for vessels to the offshore industry. But already now there is a surplus of offshofre vessels on the market.
Around 10,000 are employed at Norwegian shipyards, and another 12-14.000 in the ships' equipment and outfitting industry.