CHINA has held its lead in the global shipbuilding industry in the first half of 2022, with 45.2 per cent share of the global market, according to multiple indicators, reports Beijing's Global Times.

The nation's shipyards completed 18.5 million deadweight tonnes (DWT) of orders, which took 45.2 per cent of the global market and ranked first in the world, according to statistics released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

Orders on hand as of June 30 accounted for 47.8 per cent of the market, the largest in the world. Those orders totalled 102.74 million DWT, up 18.6 per cent year on year, with ships being built for export accounting for 88.7 per cent of the total.

China was also first in new orders, with a share of 50.8 per cent, though new orders went down 41.3 per cent year on year to 22.46 million DWT, according to the MIIT.

The Shanghai Merchant Ship Design and Research Institute (SDARI), part of shipbuilding giant China State Shipbuilding Co, received more than 100 design orders for ships as of the end of June, taking 40 per cent of domestic market orders and 22.5 per cent of global market share, SDARI said.

According to Clarksons, China's shipbuilding totalled 22.8 million compensated gross tonmes accounting for 50 per cent of the global total, in 2021.

The shipbuilding completion volume of China, Japan and South Korea - three major global shipbuilders - all saw yearly declines recently.

Delivery speed will become an important variable in the new shipbuilding market this year, said the China Association of The National Shipbuilding Industry (CANSI) in late June.

The CANSI also said that Chinese shipbuilders will have relatively wider profit margins than their South Korean and Japanese peers in the short term, given that the currencies of Japan and South Korea are more influenced by the US dollar than the yuan, amid interest hikes of the US Federal Reserve.