China’s shipbuilding industry saw a surge in the first quarter of the year as demand for vessels increased due to tighter air capacity. 

It also maintained its huge share of the world's new and holding ship orders as well as its share in terms of completion volume.

The completion volume of shipbuilding in China rose 39.8% year on year to 9.79 million deadweight tonnes (dwt) in the first three months of 2021, according to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

This accounts for 43.4% of the global market share as reported by state-owned Xinhua News.

New shipbuilding orders also grew by an unprecedented 251.7% over the same period in 2020 to 17.2 million dwt — which makes up for 47.4% of the global market share.

The volume of holding orders, however, was down 1.4% year on year to 78.48 million dwt by the end of March. This accounts for 44.6% worldwide.