Update on Japanese shipbuilding market

The JSEA represents the major Japanese shipbuilders, including Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Imabari, IHI, Mitsui, Universal, Kawasaki and Sasebo. Japan has been steadily losing market share for traditional ships over the last two decades to Korea and now to China . Japan has responded by focusing on higher tech vessels and high spec traditional ships.
Japanese shipyards enjoy a virtual monopoly in building ships for domestic shipping lines. The numbers reported were for export vessels. While certainly not the numbers one would wish to publish, they actually tell a remarkable tale of resiliency. Competition yards in Korea and China have seen new orders virtually disappear since 1Q08, and have been fighting order renegotiations and cancellations.
According to the JSEA, the combined order backlog in March of 2009 is at 1,312 ships versus 1,335 in March 2008. Any of the Korean or Chinese yards would love to have their backlogs show similar trends. Of course, have an order book and profitably delivering the vessels are not always directly related. Despite comparatively exceptional productivity rates, Japan remains the highest cost producer of the three major shipbuilding nations. Still, the numbers so far support the Japanese yards being in a better position to survive the coming prolonged weak shipbuilding market than their Korean and Chinese brethren.