According to the report of the Association Baltic and International Maritime Council (BIMCO), headquartered in Denmark, the number of shipyards in the world in the first part of 2016. have received just few orders for new ships. More specifically, the number of ordered ships in gross registry tonnes (GRT) is the lowest in the last 20 years. However, the negative trend lasts since 2013. and there is no indication that the results for this year will be better.
In the last 20 years, the most orders of ships was in 2007. followed by a continuous decrease. The main reason for the decrease is the lack of demand for tankers and containers, while the biggest losers are the Japanese and South Korean shipyards (number of contracts on construction fell by 86%). Chinese shipyards have almost 50% less orders. The only bright spot, a positive trend was recorded in Europe, where they concluded contracts worth 2.52 million of BRT. This is an increase of 45.3% compared to the first eight months in 2015.
