Korea resumes while Japan is quiet

South Korean builders have resumed their marketing activities for newbuildings, but Japanese yards are not dropping their wait-and-see stance. Shipyards in South Korea have been targeting order receipts in order to fill their empty slipways for ships deliverable in 2011 that were left empty after they accepted some requests to change the delivery dates of containerships.

Meanwhile, Japanese yards have virtually no empty slipways for vessels for near-term delivery, so they see no need to grab orders by lowering their prices, according to a salesperson for a domestic yard. Against the backdrop of the ample workload, Japanese builders have shifted their focus onto developing new ship types and hope to reinforce their range of ship types in order to be prepared when the competition heats up in the future. With the massive orders of bulkers placed in the past five years, the yards are now setting their gaze toward tankers and gas carriers.