Analytic Comparisons of Shipbuilding Competitiveness between China and Korea

Abstract

Purpose - This research empirically proves that global shipbuilding industry leadership has moved to China from Korea. Design/Methodology - Competitiveness is measured by AHP for the weights of comprehensive competitiveness, which is the output mixture of three attributive factors: shipbuilding technology, shipbuilding contract price, and export credit. Findings - China is far ahead of Korea for standard vessels such as bulkers and containerships with competitiveness weights of 0.762 and 0.612, respectively, against 0.238 and 0.388 of Korea. Korea is maintaining its competitiveness only in LNG carriers (174k CBM) with a competitiveness weight 0.621. China and Korea have similar competitiveness for chemical carriers, complex vessels with a small hull size. The sources of Chinese competitiveness are shipbuilding contract price and export credit. With the majority share of standard vessel types in the world fleet, China will hold a bigger market share than Korea in the global shipbuilding industry in the forthcoming years. Implications - The swing factors of market power are shipbuilding technology and contract price. If China fails to further develop shipbuilding technology for shipowners worried about the reliability of the Chinese-built vessels, shipowners may swing back to Korea. The rising Chinese labor cost will expedite this swing in the forthcoming competition. Originality/value - To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first paper that quantitatively examines the competitiveness of shipbuilding between China and Korea by comparing attributive factors for competitiveness.