Japanese shipbuilding industry is seen to be benefiting from stronger price competitiveness thanks to a weaker yen.
As global leading shipowners are trying to secure eco-friendly and high-efficiency vessels preemptively while newbuilding prices are staying at their historic low, Japanese shipbuilders famous of building high quality ships are adding price competitiveness to its attractive factors that there is a growing number of overseas shipowners seeking Japanese yards to place orders for fuel-efficient bulkers.  
According to data from Japan Ship Exporters' Association (JSEA), during the period from January to June, 2013, Japanese yards contracted a total of 166 newbuildings for export of a combined 7.03m gross tons, almost doubled from the same period of a year ago.
During the period, in terms of cgt, Japanese yards contracted 3.32m cgt. The figure, Compensated Gross Tonnage (cgt) refers to an indicator of the amount of work that is necessary to build a given ship and is calculated by multiplying the tonnage of a ship by a coefficient, which is determined according to type and size of a particular ship.
According to Clarkson Research data, Japanese yards contracted for 2.14m cgt from January to June, 2013, showing a big difference from JSEA data by 36% (1.18m cgt). Clarkson said that Korea inked for 5.99m cgt new contracts while China put pens on 6.57m cgt.
Meanwhile, Japan’s new contracts for export ship reached the highest record posted since 2008 of global financial crisis. For the first half of the year, Japan won 146 bulkers which accounts for 90% of total, of which small and medium sized bulkers, such as handymax and etc. took two thirds of all with 21 capesize bulker orders.
Particularly, export vessels for overseas owners recorded 99 vessels, five times as many as a year ago, accounting for a significant ratio.