NEWS / December 19, 2008

Hyundai, Daewoo miss order targets

South Korea's Hyundai Heavy Industries and Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering, the world's No. 1 and No. 3 shipbuilder, missed their order goals this year as the global economic recession has dampened demand for new vessels, an industry source said Thursday.
Still, some analysts say the nation's top three shipbuilders, including world's No. 2 shipyard Samsung Heavy Industries, fared well as they had secured enough orders to keep them busy over the next three years, despite the abrupt downturn in the global shipping industry. So far this year, Hyundai Heavy won orders worth US$21.9 billion, accounting for 75.5 per cent of its original self-set target. Daewoo Shipbuilding received orders worth $11.7 billion, compared with its goal of $17.5 billion. Samsung Heavy was the only shipyard among the world's top three shipbuilders to meet its order goal of $15 billion. Last week, a research unit of state-run Korea Development Bank predicted that new orders for South Korean shipbuilders would plunge 28.6 per cent next year due to the deepening global recession.