Commission staff working document - Annex to the Commission working document - LeaderSHIP 2015 progress report [COM(2007) 220 final]
Date: 2007-04-25
Institutions: European Commission
Subjects: activity report, aid to industry, competition policy, industrial policy, international competition, shipbuilding













EUR-Lex - 52007SC0517 - EN






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52007SC0517

Commission staff working document - Annex to the Commission working document - LeaderSHIP 2015 progress report [COM(2007) 220 final]  /* SEC/2007/0517 */  








[pic] | COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES |Brussels, 25.4.2007SEC(2007) 517COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT Annex to theCOMMISSION WORKING DOCUMENT LeaderSHIP 2015 progress report [COM(2007) 220 final]Market OverviewEurope boasts around 150 shipyards of which about 40 are active in the global market for large sea-going commercial vessels. Direct employment by shipyards (civil and naval, new building and repair) in the European Union (EU) stands at around 140,000 highly skilled professionals with many more jobs now outsourced to the vibrant marine equipment industry which employs a further 350,000 people.Europe’s shipyards account for some 20% of the worldwide production capacity (in volume terms) of merchant ships and they are global leaders in the production of passenger and cargo ferries, cruise ships, dredgers and a number of highly specialized smaller vessels such as fish production vessels, mega-yachts, research vessels etc. Significant market positions are also held in latest generation transport vessels such as containerships, product & chemical carriers, multipurpose cargo vessels and car carriers as well as in high value-added vessels such as LNG carriers, off-shore and inland waterway vessels. However, Europe’s status as the region with the highest global turnover - which persisted for most of the last decade - has been challenged after three consecutive years with a decreasing output in combination with the low level of the dollar against the euro (as most ships are priced in US dollars). The return to a positive trend was however, recorded in 2006 with a growth in production of some 23%.New-building prices have increased significantly in recent years from a deep low in 2002 reaching a new peak at the end of 2006. But for some ship-types, prices have only recently recovered to levels last seen in the early 1990’s and for European yards; these welcome increases have been tempered by high steel prices. The global shipbuilding market is experiencing a strong boom with historical records being breached in terms of production, new orders and order-book volumes. The world order book at the end of 2006 reached another all time record of nearly 132 million compensated gross tones (cgt) which is more than four times the current annual output.Graph 1 : Overview of EU shipbuilding[pic]Graph 2 : Orderbook evolution in the main shipbuilding areas[pic]European yards have seen their order-book stage a v-shaped recovery after a slump in 2002. Whilst, since 2003, the growth of the EU’s order-book has been surpassed only by China and with a value in excess of €40bn it currently provides approximately four year’s production volume.However, recent large increases in global shipbuilding capacity – mainly in Asia – are likely to make the trading environment for European yards even more challenging in the near future.