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Compared with last year’s first quarter, the volume of global newbuilding orders has been dropped by 71% to 2.3 mil cgt and the amount of orders decreased by 62.6% to $6.5 bil. Faring far worse, the Korean shipbuilding industry posted a 94.1% decrease in quantity of orders to 170,000 cgt and a 93.9% decrease in amount to $390 mil. Consequently, Korean market share in the global shipbuilding industry decreased from 30.2% to 7.4%. KOEXIM Bank forecasted that the total volume of shipbuilding orders secured by Korean yards this year will see an 85% drop of 1.6 mil cgt, worth a 15% drop of $3.5 bil. Despite the current severe conditions due to lack of orders, Korean yards have decided to endure this hard time even if it means leaving gap in their production, because selling VLCCs in the $70 mil level like some Chinese yards will wreck the market and at the same time ruin the industry.

TOPICS.

President Park held landmark summit with Iran’s Hassan Rouhani on May 2nd (p.2)

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon might run in next year’s presidential election (p.2)

The Humidifier disinfectant case is rocking the country, taking away 220 lives (p.3)

Han Kang became first Korean to win prestigious Man Booker International Prize (p.5)

NK held a rare congress of its Workers’ Party to reaffirm Kim Jung-un’s rule (p.5)

NK’s fourth Musudan missile firings ended in failure (p.7)

Cost of inter-Korea unification is likely to stand at $1 tril (p.7)

S&P warned that Korea will be the third-hardest-hit country by China (p.8)

OECD cut its 2016 growth forecast of SKorea’s economy to 2.7% from 3.1% (p.8)

Combined foreign stake in Samsung Electronics (SEC) exceeded 50% (p.10)

Hanjin’s chairman Cho stepped down as president of PyeongChang WOOC (p.11)

Kia Motors posted all-time high sales of 56,508 units in USA in April (p.13)

Exchange rate of KWon against USDollar weakened to 1,192 (p.14)

Korean yards decided to endure hard time rather than lowering prices (p.15)

Big 3 mapped out self-rehabilitation measures (p.17)

STX filed an application to Seoul Central District Court for court receivership (p.19)

HMM and Hanjin Shipping made progress in negotiations to cut charter (p.20)

Hanjin Shipping won approval from bank creditors for its voluntary restructuring (p.20)

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