Croatia’s important ship building industry continues to thrive.
The recovery of the global shipbuilding industry has slowed down this year, but the situation is still better than at the beginning of the economic crisis in 2008. In the first nine months of this year, there were significantly less new orders than a year earlier. As reported by Hrvatska Brodogradnja Jadranbrod, construction of 736 new ships has been contracted, while in 2014 there were 2,080 new ships commissioned. The revival of world shipbuilding industry began in 2013, when the number of new ships was twice as large as the previous year. At present, the global order book includes a total of 5,219 ships, worth about 288 billion dollars, reports Poslovni.hr on October 7, 2015.
More than 92 percent of ships have been contracted at shipyards in the three leading shipbuilding countries of the world: China, South Korea and Japan. The European shipbuilding industry holds a share of just 1.62 percent, and is trying to compete with the Far Eastern shipbuilders with innovations and putting the focus on the development of clean and safe technologies for the construction of new ships. Croatia is in the tenth place on the global list of shipbuilding nations, with a share of 0.19 percent.
The list of European shipbuilding nations has witnessed big changes during the last ten years. Croatia is currently in the second place, behind only Romania which represents as much as 69 percent of new orders recorded in European shipyards. In the last few years, Romanian shipyards have been taken over by large Korean and Dutch shipbuilders, who have moved there a part of the construction process due to lower construction costs.
The Croatian share of the European order book stands at 11.7 percent. It is interesting that Poland, after the restructuring ten years ago, has ceased to be a strong player in the European shipbuilding. Under pressure from Brussels, large Polish shipbuilding companies have turned into small producers, focused on the production of ships for defence industry and overhauls. At a global level, the European shipbuilding industry has ceased to be a player in construction of large cargo ships, and has focused on ships of less capacity for passenger transport.
