In the first half of this year, Korean shipbuilders gained newbuilding orders of a combined 5.99m cgt, up by 60.4% from 3.74m cgt recorded a year ago and accounted for 36% of global newbuilding contracts, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy of Korea and Korea Offshore & Shipbuilding Association (KOSHIPA).
Contract values recorded $18.49bn during the same period, increasing 22.8% from $15.05bn of last year, overcoming difficult domestic and overseas environment, such as a weak yen and etc. and showed a firm recovery movement.
Domestic yards were strong in winning orders for tanker, large containership, LNG carrier, offshore plant and so on in the first half. As for tanker order, they secured 85 out of 140 units ordered in the world while they won 26 large containerships out of 43 units and 12 units of LNG carriers out of 21.  
Particularly, the three drillships, two FPSOs, one LNG-FSRU placed around the world in the first half were all secured by Korean shipbuilders, proving Korea is still the strongest offshore plant nation.
Amid protracted recession in shipbuilding and shipping industries since 2008, global newbuilding orders surged by 39.5% to 16.66m cgt from 11.94m cgt recorded in H1 of last year, which is a sign for possible recovery of shipbuilding industry.
However, it is still too early to see it as the beginning of full recovery since the contracts fell short of the level (22.85m cgt) posted in H1 of 2011, although orders increased comparing with last year.
Global newbuilding deliveries recorded 19.73m cgt, down by 33.6% from 29.71m of the same period a year ago, of which Korea delivered a combined 6.92m cgt and accounted for 35% of market share, occupying the first position.
Global orderbook as of late June, 2013, was calculated to be 90.30m cgt, down by 17.4% from 109.32m cgt recorded in the same month a year ago.  
Meanwhile, as of the end of May, Korea was seen to be standing on $102.5bn orderbook in value terms, accounting for 37.7% in global market.