Around 90% of global commerce, equivalent to roughly 12bn tonnes a year, moves by sea. The combined market value of the world's roughly 120 listed shipbuilders exceeded $200bn in early 2025.
In the late 2000s South Korea and Japan together produced roughly half of global merchant-fleet tonnage, with China accounting for around a third. By 2024 these proportions had more or less inverted, partly because the Chinese government gave generous subsidies and state-owned banks provided cheap loans. Chinese yards account for two-thirds of existing orders by tonnage.
South Korean and Japanese yards retain a technological advantage over Chinese ones in building vessels that run on cleaner fuels such as methanol or liquefied natural gas. New emissions standards provisionally approved by the International Maritime Organisation, due to start in 2027 alongside a carbon price, are expected to favour these yards.
Around 1900, Britain built 60% of all the world's ships. By 2025 it built less than 1%. A shrinking empire and navy, and competition from lower-cost Asian shipbuilders, gutted the industry. Shipbuilding was nationalised in 1977, only to be reversed six years later. Most shipyards have abandoned commercial shipbuilding; the Royal Navy buys the bulk of ships built in Britain, leaving shipbuilders exposed to boom-and-bust cycles. The number of firms making warships dropped from over a dozen in 1960 to just two: BAE Systems and Babcock.
The tide has begun to turn. In 2022 the government announced a shipbuilding strategy with an order pipeline of 150 naval and civilian ships spread over 30 years. The Royal Navy's surface fleet is expected to grow to 24 frigates and destroyers by the mid-2030s, its most significant expansion in decades. In August 2025 Norway signed a £10bn contract for five Type 26 frigates, Britain's highest-value warship export deal ever. On current spending trends, Britain's shipbuilding pipeline could face a £5.9bn funding shortfall, according to the National Audit Office.
America's domestic shipbuilding industry has been virtually non-existent for decades. In the 1970s America made 5% of the world's merchant vessels; by 2025 the figure was 0.1%. A medium-size tanker or container ship made in America costs around $300m, six times as much as one built in South Korea. In April 2025 America's trade representative imposed new fees on Chinese-built ships calling at American ports, with Chinese shipping lines charged triple the standard rate.
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