Year-end orders

Korean yards took the vast majority of the orders placed in December to finish the year ahead of Japan. Its yards took orders for 66 vessels totalling 3.7 million gross against 16 export orders in Japanese yards totalling 667,650g.

This brings the total to 227 ships (12.7 million gross) ordered from Korean yards in 1999 – a 27.2 per cent increase over 1998. Japan ends the year having secured orders for 237 export ships of 8.7 million gross (up from 144 vessel/7.2 million gross in 1998) and bringing the order backlog to 427 vessels of 20.2 million gross.