Imabari Shipbuilding is calling for Japanese yards to cooperate on design to counter the consolidation trend in South Korean and Chinese shipbuilding.
Speaking at a company press conference held in Tokyo company president Yukito Hagaki said: “As consolidation progresses in South Korea and China, I think Japanese shipbuilders must start to look at alliances to share design functions.”
In the biggest consolidation so far in shipbuilding South Korea’s Hyundai heavy Industries is acquiring DSME.
Imabari is already part of a Japanese technology alliance with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Oshima Shipbuilding and Namura Shipbuilding.
Imabari is Japan’s largest shipyard but Higaki admitted it is struggling to make a profit at current prices.
But he said that the company is now in a position to wait for prices to increase.
“Our company is suffering against the low-price strategy of yards focused on large ship types in South Korea and China," he said.
"Now I think we should be patient with the base of a three year backlog in the expectation that prices will rise."
Higaki is hopeful that IMO 2020 will see freight rates rise and that will eventually work through to newbuilding prices.
Despite the market troubles Higaki said that last year Imabari had its second busiest year.
In the 2018 fiscal year he said the company delivered 62 vessels amounting to 4.6 million gross tonnes including ultra large containerships, LNG carriers, car carriers and ferries. It earned JPY 391bn ($3.6bn) in revenue in fiscal 2018.
On top of that it has won orders for 78 ships so far this fiscal year.
Its latest orders include VLCCs for the Navios Group and 11,000-teu containerships for Yang Ming.
