Shipbuilding completions
53.69Ministry of Industry and Information Technology ↗
million dwt
Industry · shipbuilding
China shipbuilding industry
Read completions, new orders and the year-end orderbook on one deadweight-tonnage basis, with a separate world share for each. The three indicators describe different stages and cannot be added into one “total scale”.
New ship orders
107.82
million dwt
Orderbook at year end
274.42
million dwt
Long-run global structure · 1986–2023
How newbuilding completion market shares shifted across major countries and regions
On a gross-tonnage (GT) basis, China rose from 2.41% of world completions in 1986 to 48.94% in 2023. Japan fell from 46.60% to 15.63%, while Korea moved from 18.67% to 28.54%. Europe and “Other” retain the source’s original groupings.
Source: Japan MLIT ↗ · Japan MLIT White Paper, Data Appendix 11-7; IHS Markit data; newbuilding completions on a GT basis. This history is not spliced with the MIIT DWT shares.chinainfigures.com
Long-run exact shares
World newbuilding completion market shares, 1986–2023
Unit: percent of world newbuilding completion gross tonnage (GT). Europe and “Other” are source-defined aggregates.
| Year | China | Korea | Japan | Europe | Other | World completions (million GT) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1986 | 2.41% | 18.67% | 46.60% | 19.73% | 12.48% | 18.20 |
| 1987 | 3.34% | 15.26% | 43.52% | 21.02% | 16.71% | 14.82 |
| 1988 | 2.12% | 27.34% | 35.37% | 21.93% | 13.08% | 12.10 |
| 1989 | 2.97% | 23.07% | 38.26% | 20.77% | 14.92% | 15.38 |
| 1990 | 2.90% | 20.69% | 41.51% | 20.80% | 14.09% | 16.83 |
| 1991 | 3.06% | 21.13% | 43.45% | 20.26% | 12.10% | 17.77 |
| 1992 | 3.53% | 23.60% | 40.98% | 21.82% | 10.06% | 19.24 |
| 1993 | 3.86% | 21.82% | 43.34% | 21.87% | 9.12% | 21.56 |
| 1994 | 4.86% | 21.20% | 43.53% | 20.75% | 9.65% | 20.09 |
| 1995 | 4.61% | 26.85% | 39.97% | 20.81% | 7.77% | 23.59 |
| 1996 | 4.51% | 27.71% | 39.16% | 21.33% | 7.29% | 26.47 |
| 1997 | 5.76% | 31.15% | 38.43% | 17.49% | 7.17% | 26.51 |
| 1998 | 6.18% | 27.43% | 39.18% | 19.32% | 7.90% | 26.60 |
| 1999 | 5.57% | 33.28% | 38.76% | 16.17% | 6.23% | 28.91 |
| 2000 | 5.60% | 37.45% | 37.10% | 14.31% | 5.53% | 32.88 |
| 2001 | 6.58% | 35.94% | 37.09% | 14.67% | 5.72% | 32.46 |
| 2002 | 7.35% | 37.97% | 34.62% | 13.96% | 6.11% | 34.74 |
| 2003 | 10.86% | 37.32% | 33.99% | 12.01% | 5.82% | 37.97 |
| 2004 | 12.84% | 36.15% | 34.62% | 11.20% | 5.18% | 42.31 |
| 2005 | 14.51% | 37.74% | 33.59% | 8.97% | 5.20% | 49.05 |
| 2006 | 16.18% | 34.93% | 33.64% | 9.77% | 5.48% | 53.82 |
| 2007 | 19.44% | 35.21% | 29.31% | 10.14% | 5.91% | 59.85 |
| 2008 | 21.51% | 37.74% | 26.78% | 8.15% | 5.81% | 70.39 |
| 2009 | 29.61% | 36.20% | 23.63% | 5.41% | 5.15% | 80.39 |
| 2010 | 38.01% | 32.48% | 20.30% | 4.46% | 4.75% | 99.84 |
| 2011 | 40.01% | 34.09% | 18.35% | 2.67% | 4.89% | 105.86 |
| 2012 | 41.67% | 32.08% | 17.65% | 2.24% | 6.36% | 99.11 |
| 2013 | 37.19% | 33.94% | 19.96% | 2.63% | 6.28% | 73.18 |
| 2014 | 35.72% | 34.23% | 20.15% | 2.87% | 7.02% | 66.69 |
| 2015 | 37.63% | 33.79% | 18.65% | 2.48% | 7.46% | 69.98 |
| 2016 | 33.64% | 37.23% | 19.37% | 4.08% | 5.67% | 68.86 |
| 2017 | 36.14% | 34.53% | 19.23% | 3.80% | 6.30% | 68.65 |
| 2018 | 40.27% | 24.39% | 24.51% | 3.66% | 7.17% | 59.39 |
| 2019 | 35.48% | 31.88% | 23.68% | 3.75% | 5.21% | 68.58 |
| 2020 | 40.44% | 30.98% | 21.67% | 2.73% | 4.17% | 59.73 |
| 2021 | 44.02% | 31.88% | 17.48% | 3.25% | 3.37% | 61.69 |
| 2022 | 45.78% | 29.00% | 17.13% | 4.31% | 3.79% | 56.07 |
| 2023 | 48.94% | 28.54% | 15.63% | 2.78% | 4.12% | 64.32 |
Two-year volume comparison
Three shipbuilding indicators, 2024–2025
Completions and new orders are annual flows; the orderbook is a stock at the end of December. The chart places them side by side but does not sum them.
Source: Ministry of Industry and Information Technology ↗ · MIIT annual releases; deadweight-tonnage basis; completions and new orders are annual flows, orderbook is a year-end stockchinainfigures.com
World market shares
World shares moved differently across the three measures
In 2025 the completion share rose to 56.1% and the orderbook share to 66.8%, while the new-order share fell from 74.1% to 69.0%. Each series is compared only with the same metric in the previous year.
Source: Ministry of Industry and Information Technology ↗ · Uses only deadweight-tonnage shares available in both years; does not mix in 2024 compensated-gross-tonnage shareschinainfigures.com
Accessible data table
Six formal observations for 2024–2025
| Year | Metric | Type | China value (million dwt) | YoY | World share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | Shipbuilding completions | Annual flow | 48.18 | +13.8% | 55.7% |
| 2024 | New ship orders | Annual flow | 113.05 | +58.8% | 74.1% |
| 2024 | Orderbook at year end | Year-end stock | 208.72 | +49.7% | 63.1% |
| 2025 | Shipbuilding completions | Annual flow | 53.69 | +11.4% | 56.1% |
| 2025 | New ship orders | Annual flow | 107.82 | -4.6% | 69.0% |
| 2025 | Orderbook at year end | Year-end stock | 274.42 | +31.5% | 66.8% |
Definition
Deadweight tonnage measures carrying capacity
Deadweight tonnage reflects the total mass a vessel can carry, including cargo, fuel, water, people and stores. It is not ship count, compensated gross tonnage or contract value.
Flows versus stock
Do not add the three measures
Completions and new orders are annual flows; the orderbook is unfinished work outstanding at year end. Adding them would double-count vessels at different stages.
Share interpretation
Do not average the three shares
Completions, new orders and the orderbook each have a different world denominator. A 69.0% new-order share cannot be averaged with a 56.1% completion share into one “overall share”.
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Public record
Revision and update timeline
Long-run international shipbuilding completion-share history added
Added the official MLIT/IHS 1986-2023 gross-tonnage series for world new shipbuilding completion shares across China, the Republic of Korea, Japan, Europe and Other. The historical GT series remains separate from the existing MIIT DWT 2024-2025 completion, new-order and orderbook measures.
Related sources: Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism of Japan ↗
Sources and definitions registered; automated checks passed
Shipbuilding industry indicator added
Added archived MIIT 2024–2025 completions, new orders, year-end orderbook and metric-specific DWT world shares.
Related sources: Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China ↗
Sources and definitions registered; automated checks passed
Data downloads and revision timeline added
Added page-level formal-data CSV files, chart-level CSV/PNG/SVG exports and a bilingual revision timeline to all indicator pages.
Sources and definitions registered; automated checks passed